United States

Apple CEO Tim Cook Says Cash Is Out, Cards and Apps Are In

Apparently, the next generation won't even know what the little pieces of green paper are.

The next generation of children will look at money the same way millennials look at pagers and phone books, according to Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook.

Cook was addressing a crowd of students at Trinity College Dublin when he candidly told one student that her “kids will not know what money is.” The off-hand quip was made during a discussion about the declining use of cash and coins in favor of bank cards and apps such as Apple Pay and Google Wallet.

While Cook is obviously a biased supporter of Apple Pay, there have been recent studies that provided support to his claim. In the United States, fewer people each year report using cash as their primary means of spending, and even less people report using checks. Online payments and e-commerce is also on the rise, thanks in part to online shopping sites such as Amazon, Business Insider reports.

But the uptick in the number of people using electronics to make every day purchases could leave room for an increase in certain types of crime – specifically, hacking – and that’s something Cook also addressed during his appearance at Trinity.

“[Apple] plans to continue to encrypt end to end with no back door,” he said. “We will productively work with the governments to try to convince them that it’s also in their best interests in the national security sense.”

Contact Us