Apple Pay Cash
Apple had announced iOS 11 at the WWDC event in June 2017, with a new feature called “Apple Pay Cash”. It is where you can send cash or payments to your friends or recipients, without the need of a bank transfer.
Twitter user, @AppleR669, mentioned that according to an online search on IPOS, Apple had registered the trademark and the application is currently pending examination.
This might suggest that the feature could be coming soon when iOS 11 drops. However, not only it is registered in Singapore, but also in some countries.
Apple has also registered the trademark under WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation), which helps to protect intellectual property internationally. It is protected in countries or cities like the EU, Phillippines, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore and Israeli.
Apple Pay Cash works similar to a regular Apple Pay transaction, but it is via iMessage, with end-to-end encryption. We hope that this feature will be available in the Singapore region soon when the public version of iOS 11 is available as Apple Pay Cash were not available in the iOS 11 betas.
HomePod
The HomePod was also announced at WWDC as part of a smart speaker for the Home and as rivals to Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Google Home with Google Assistant. Apple has also registered the trademark for the HomePod in Singapore which could suggest that we can see the HomePod soon, probably in 2018, as it will be available in December 2017 only in the US, UK and Australia at launch.
As always, we hope that Apple will sell the HomePod in Singapore as part of the first wave or at least part of the second wave of countries.
Sources: IPOS Search, WIPO
25TechGeek 