If you can accept credit cards as a form of payment it will significantly increase sales for your business. Furthermore, if you can process those payments directly on your smartphone, it can boost sales even more, especially if your business isn’t always confined to one physical location. Perhaps you are researching mobile credit card processing because you provide goods or services directly to customers on site or at tradeshows and local marketplaces. Maybe you want to give customers in your store the flexibility to purchase products from sales associates, not just the cashier at the register. Mobile credit card processing services issue iPhone card readers to let you accept credit cards wherever you are. Read more about this topic in our articles about iPhone card readers. The three that emerge as best are Flagship ROAMpay, CreditCardProcessing.com, and Leaders Merchant Services.

IPHONE CARD READERS: WHAT TO LOOK FOR

Mobile payment processing services can vary greatly in cost and features. We rank on price, hardware compatibility and transaction features to reveal the best service.

Pricing
Some iPhone card reader services charge a setup fee, while others charge for the card reader itself. Beyond these one-time costs, services also charge ongoing fees such as monthly service fees and per-transaction fees. Charged every time you swipe a credit card, per-transaction fees take into account the base rate and the processing rate. The processing rate depends on how you input credit card information. If you swipe the credit card it is lower risk transaction than keying in the card number, which is why it costs less.

Hardware & Compatibility 
Services that process mobile payments usually work with a wide variety of popular mobile devices, not just the iPhone. Make sure the service you choose will equip you with a mobile card swiper. While you can use an app on your phone to process credit cards, an actual reader lowers your per-transaction fees because the card is present as opposed to typing in a number.

Transaction Features
Mobile card readers provide a number of features beyond credit card processing. There are features that should help boost the convenience, intuitiveness and security of processing mobile purchases. Paired with a compatible mobile device, these services allow you to capture customer signatures and accept tips. You can also calculate sales tax and email receipts from your phone to your clients.

All services in our lineup use SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encryption to secure transaction sessions. The app on the mobile phone is password protected so that if you lose the phone, nobody can get into your account. Furthermore, no credit card information is stored on your phone, so your clients don't have to worry about stolen data.

It is convenient and secure to process credit cards directly from your iPhone. Whether you are shopping for your first iPhone card reader or looking for a mobile payment processor compatible with your existing merchant account, our comparisons and reviews of mobile payment processing services might help you to decide.

Four years ago, I wore an iPod Nano on my wrist and I loved it. I liked the novelty of it, the way it played music on my wrist, and could go with me anywhere. At the time, I wished the strapped-on music player, with its watch faces and little assortment of apps, could do more. And I dreamed of a day it might connect to my phone.

Well, here we are. The Apple Watch is a brand-new Apple product, the first from-the-ground-up product line since the iPad and since Tim Cook took the helm. This watch is, in a way, a new type of wrist-worn super-iPod. It's also a symbiotic iPhone companion. And, it's a fitness device.

It also embarks onto a churning sea of smartwatch launches -- many manufacturers have set sail with ambitious wearables; very few are bona fide successes. Most people aren't even sure they need one. Can the Apple Watch succeed where others have foundered?

The Apple Watch comes in three different models, two different sizes, and six different finishes, with a range of swappable bands and prices ranging from $349, £299 or AU$499 all the way up to $17,000, £13,500 or AU$24,000. It's designed to be Apple's most personal product: fashion as much as it is tech. Apple's products have been fashionable for years, but now Apple wants these watches to transcend into jewelry.

Smartwatches may one day be the future of phones, or a seamless extension of both them and your home, or any number of connected devices. Right now, they function as phone accessories. And that's where the Apple Watch lands. Apple designed the watch to help us look at our phones less. I'd call it more of a smaller screen in Apple's spectrum of differently sized screens. I used it instead of my phone, sometimes. Then, I'd go back to my phone. Has it changed my behavior? It's too early to tell yet, but it might.

I've been using the Apple Watch for a week. I've worn it on my wrist every day, doing everything possible that I could think of. I've tracked walks and measured my heart rate, paid for lunch, listened to albums while exploring parks without my phone, chatted with family, kept up on email, looked for Ubercars, kept up on news, navigated on long car trips for Passover, controlled my Apple TV with it and followed baseball games while I was supposed to be watching my 2-year-old.

The watch is beautiful and promising -- the most ambitious wearable that exists. But in an attempt to do everything in the first generation, the Apple Watch still leaves plenty to be desired. Short battery life compared with other watches and higher prices are the biggest flags for now. But Apple is just setting sail, and it has a long journey ahead.