I know it's not that big an inconvenience, but it just seemed like an awkward conclusion to a transaction that's supposed to be simplified by these devices.
This is just much less ghetto and has a more substantial card reader built into it.
I'm still wary about the whole concept of letting the customer access the POS interface. What's to keep the customer from subtracting a few items off the tab while the barista is away and working?
Flipping the case over and letting the UI switch into a "signature capture only" mode might be a nice way to solve that.
I actually had a meeting with a guy from a credit card clearing company yesterday. His comment was that the credit card companies have pretty much given up on introducing chip and PIN to the US. They'll just let the US keep the magnet strip and signature until they can replace the credit card with things like VISA Wallet, NFC or whatever the solution will be.
They show the whole stand spins around on a center axis for the signature.
I've seen it at CVS, RiteAid, McDonalds, Wawa, ShopRite, Home Depot...
On a credit card you have the safety of being able to appeal transactions. I wouldn't want this on a debit card.
I want to build a custom application that uses their hardware and payment processing back end. But I can't.
Unfortunately I paid $499 for this stuff from Square just last month, and I'm not going to spend $299 more to upgrade to a fancier stand.
