'the familiar "Pay with Amazon" button'
Not familiar to me. I think I might have read about it somewhere though. Is this a U.S.-only thing?
Amazon has unveiled a service that allows smartphone users to pay for music, applications and other content without having to enter credit card numbers into their devices. The service, known as Mobile Payments Service, is a set of application programming interfaces developers can plug into websites so they work seamlessly with …
If this is a easy enough, economical enough and reliable enough alternative to the current 'I am the operator and would like 80% of the revenue' - guessing the mobile carriers are not going to be too happy about this.
coat: since someone will be leaving the party soon...
As far as I know, Apple kit users only pay using iTunes when purchasing stuff from the iTunes Music/App Store, which is integrated into the application. Why would anybody go out of their way to use a separate payment system? Or more to the point, how could the payment system be externalised from the store and application themselves?
So, no, it does not compete with Apple's iTunes. It does compete with PayPal and Google Cash for all ther e-commerce purchases done over the web, though.
-dZ.