Apple Pay Coming to Starbucks, KFC, and Chili's in 2016

Popular coffee chain Starbucks will begin accepting Apple Pay by the end of the year, says Apple Pay vice president Jennifer Bailey, who spoke today at Re/code's Code Mobile Conference in Half Moon Bay, California.

Starbucks plans to team up with Apple to launch an Apple Pay pilot program in select U.S. stores this year before rolling Apple Pay out to approximately 7,500 company-owned Starbucks locations in the United States in early 2016. The Apple Pay payments service will be connected to Starbucks' own loyalty program, but it is not clear if Starbucks customers who make purchases with Apple Pay will be able to earn Starbucks rewards.

jenniferbaileycodemobile
At the current time, Starbucks uses its own barcode-based in-app mobile payments system for coffee and snack purchases made within its retail stores. The Starbucks iOS app does support Apple Pay, but only for reloading Starbucks cards. Given the popularity of Starbucks, Apple Pay availability at the chain could be a major boon for Apple.

In addition to Starbucks, Apple Pay will also be available in KFC fast food locations and Chili's sit-down restaurants starting next year. In Chili's, customers will be able to pay for their food directly at their tables using Apple Pay.

On stage, Bailey said Apple was "fully committed to NFC," calling it the "best technology out there" for mobile payments. She also said Apple wants to bring Apple Pay to as many countries as possible in the future, expanding beyond the United Kingdom and the United States.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay

Popular Stories

Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock Light

iOS 19 Leak Reveals All-New Design

Friday January 17, 2025 2:42 pm PST by
iOS 19 is still around six months away from being announced, but a new leak has allegedly revealed a completely redesigned Camera app. Based on footage it obtained, YouTube channel Front Page Tech shared a video showing what the new Camera app will apparently look like, with the key change being translucent menus for camera controls. Overall, the design of these menus looks similar to...
2024 App Store Awards

Apple Explains Why It Removed TikTok From the App Store in the U.S.

Sunday January 19, 2025 6:58 am PST by
Apple on late Saturday removed TikTok from the App Store in the U.S., and it has now explained why it was required to take this action. Last year, the U.S. passed a law that required Chinese company ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok due to potential national security risks, or else the platform would be banned. That law went into effect today, and companies like Apple and Google...
2024 iPhone Boxes Feature

Apple Changes Trade-In Values for iPhones, iPads, Macs, and More

Thursday January 16, 2025 6:45 am PST by
Apple today adjusted estimated trade-in values for select iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch models in the U.S., according to its website. Some values increased, while others decreased. The changes were not too significant, with most values rising or dropping by $5 to $50. We have outlined some examples below: Device New Value Old Value iPhone 15 Pro Max Up to $630 U ...
Generic iOS 18

Everything New in iOS 18.3 Beta 3

Thursday January 16, 2025 12:39 pm PST by
Apple provided the third beta of iOS 18.3 to developers today, and while the betas have so far been light on new features, the third beta makes some major changes to Notification Summaries and also tweaks a few other features. Notification Summary Changes Apple made multiple changes to Notification Summaries in response to complaints about inaccurate summaries of news headlines. For...
iOS 19 Roundup Feature

iOS 19 Rumored to Be Compatible With These iPhones

Saturday January 18, 2025 10:28 am PST by
iOS 19 will not drop support for any iPhone models, according to French website iPhoneSoft.fr. The report cited a source who said iOS 19 will be compatible with any iPhone that can run iOS 18, which would mean the following models: iPhone 16 iPhone 16 Plus iPhone 16 Pro iPhone 16 Pro Max iPhone 15 iPhone 15 Plus iPhone 15 Pro iPhone 15 Pro Max iPhone 14 iPhon...
airtag 4 pack blue

AirTag 2 Launching This Year With These 3 New Features

Sunday January 19, 2025 8:11 am PST by
After a four-year wait, a new AirTag is finally expected to launch in 2025. Below, we recap rumored upgrades for the accessory. A few months ago, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said Apple was aiming to release the AirTag 2 around the middle of 2025. While he did not offer a more specific timeframe, that means the AirTag 2 could be announced by the end of June. The original AirTag was announced...
iPad Pro vs iPhone 17 Air Feature

Here's How Thin the iPhone 17 Air Might Be

Friday January 17, 2025 3:38 pm PST by
For the last several months, we've been hearing rumors about a redesigned version of the iPhone 17 that Apple might call the iPhone 17 "Air," or something along those lines. It's going to replace the iPhone 17 Plus as Apple's fourth iPhone option, and it will be offered alongside the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max. We know the iPhone 17 Air is going to be super slim, but...
apple power beats pro 2

Powerbeats Pro 2 Coming Soon: Apple to Announce Them 'Imminently'

Sunday January 19, 2025 8:25 am PST by
In September, Apple said that it would be launching Powerbeats Pro 2 in 2025, and it appears the wireless earbuds are coming very soon. Powerbeats Pro 2 images found in iOS 18 code In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said the Powerbeats Pro 2 are "due imminently." In addition to Apple filing the Powerbeats Pro 2 in regulatory databases last month, Gurman said Apple is...

Top Rated Comments

johnnyjibbs Avatar
121 months ago
It's already available in Starbucks and KFC in the UK :p
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
chirpie Avatar
121 months ago
A person with an iPhone using it to pay at Starbucks while surfing the web on his macbook. It's the most concentrated specific version of a hipster I can conjure. ^_^
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Red Oak Avatar
121 months ago
The retail rollout is. So. Slow

It does not even work half the time and Panera now. And they were featured at the launch

At, it now does not work at Home Depot

The whole retail expansion plan is a mess. I hope Apple Execs understand this. If they don't, this thing is going to fail
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ThunderSkunk Avatar
121 months ago
If they're going to do this one company at a time, it's going to take a thousand years to become prevalent.

Then they can start accepting a cryptocurrency, and actually start making a meaningful cultural impact.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Daalseth Avatar
121 months ago
Canada, please? Pretty, pretty please?
I'm not holding my breath. Some days I expect Uzbekistan to get ApplePay before we do.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ethanwa79 Avatar
121 months ago
Why is it that USA is almost always behind the technology? This already works in Europe. I've used it last week in Prague and this week in London.
Will US ever catch up their own game? :))))))
We're one of the largest countries in the world in both population (3rd behind India and China) and land mass (3rd behind Russia and Canada, and the largest if you count the fact that Russia and Canada are both half-frozen). I think a lot of people outside of the USA don't quite grasp the massive scale of the USA. Just setting up the infrastructure for such an area is incredibly difficult.

We also have a largely unregulated capitalistic society, unlike a lot of Europe. There is a lot of pushback when companies are forced to do things by the government or some other regulating body. Even when society wants something (more secure credit cards for example), companies feel more free to say "sorry, that costs us too much to implement" and thus it takes forever to happen.

That is why things tend to roll out slower here. But the freedom is also why many large worldwide companies are based here.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)