Question

[markhav1]

Currently have the square app on my Ipad and was wanting to use the square app on the cheapest tablet i can find. Is the 2.3 android operating system fast enuff for the square app. In other words I dont want a customer standing there to long to pay me...

 

[9to5cynic]

I would think that the speed would rely more on the speed of the android tablet rather than that of the OS. Of course, I've never heard of that app and don't know if that is entirely true for that app... ?

*shrugs*

 

[markhav1]

Yes maybe u are right.... The square app is a device u connect to ur mobile device to be able to swipe a credit or debit card. It work great, it goes straight into ur account without having to rent a credit card machine..

 

[9to5cynic]

Ahh okay. Well, I'd just check the app's website, I'd guess they have a list of supported devices... Sometimes an app will be released, but not be supported on each device... so that way you could get a tablet that'll for sure run the app.

 

[alostpacket]

Yep 9to5 nailed it, check with square -- no tablet would be "too slow" to run a credit card. It's a string of 16 numbers basically.... This is not sequencing the human genome or something

However, depending on the app, there might be some strange gotcha involved where they programmed it in a strange way -- best to use something officially supported if it's your business (IMHO).

 

[mikedt]

Yep 9to5 nailed it, check with square -- no tablet would be "too slow" to run a credit card. It's a string of 16 numbers basically.... This is not sequencing the human genome or something

That's really all it is, plus the credit card expiry date and the transaction amount. It gets encrypted, goes off to the merchant services back-end, comes back if the transaction is authorised or not. That's all there is to it I think. For a long time hand-held credit card terminals have been very low-powered devices, often Windows CE based.

 

[johnlgalt]

Yup - they were based on CE.

 

[BlueBiker]

That's really all it is, plus the credit card expiry date and the transaction amount. It gets encrypted, goes off to the merchant services back-end, comes back if the transaction is authorised or not. That's all there is to it I think. For a long time hand-held credit card terminals have been very low-powered devices, often Windows CE based.

So your weak link is going to be the reliability of your wireless connection. If you never have connection problems, and the authentication server on the other end can be assumed to respond almost instantly, then I'd expect the whole process to be pretty quick.

 

[mikedt]

So your weak link is going to be the reliability of your wireless connection. If you never have connection problems, and the authentication server on the other end can be assumed to respond almost instantly, then I'd expect the whole process to be pretty quick.

I think good system security is important as well..
TJ MAXX Update : Weak Wi-Fi Encryption (WEP) To Blame For The Security Breach

It appears that the root of all evil in TJ MAXX Marshalls security breach was the use of weak encryption (WEP) in wireless access points. Despite a market capitalization of almost $13bn, the company apparently couldn't afford to secure its Wi-Fi network with anything more robust than the sadly inadequate Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) protocol. (The much more secure Wi-Fi Protected Access has become standard on most routers for four years now.)

...ooops!!

 

[andruoid]

Believe it or not its better to have no password with WEP ...either way though, WEP should be avoided at all costs. WPA2 is the best consumer solution atm. Businesses should deploy TACACS or Radius wireless authentication.