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Nick Haskins
Nick Haskins

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The Rise of Cloud Based Point-of-Sale Applications

Back in 2010 when Ethan Marcotte penned the Responsive Web Design post, I instantly knew the landscape would shift forever. At the time I was building websites in a pseudo, html-flash like platform. I immediately switched course knowing that responsive web design would change the way we develop websites for the foreseeable future.

Eight years later, responsive web design is now standard practice.

My point isn't that I can predict the future, but that we're starting to enter a similar period in time with the pending release of Stripe Terminal. ICYMI, Stripe has released (invitation only beta) a product called Terminal, a card-reader that offers a JS powered SDK for use in web apps, and an iOS SDK for mobile apps. I've integrated Stripe Terminal into my gym management software platform Sport Keeper, slated for launch early this year.

Stripe Terminal offers a true JS powered SDK designed solely for building website applications. This is a huge moment in time, because the current solutions are PC based, and a lot connect securely through iframes. Either that, or they use USB card readers and JS to parse the credit card data for entry into a form.

This won't work when you're using Stripe and their hosted fields. Besides, its just prone to error. By offering a Javascript based SDK, we can get a 100% secure and seamless integration into user interfaces that are only limited by our imagination.

The next few years are going to be exciting and fast-paced, as we're going to see a slew of new startups with iPOS products aimed at replacing the aging fleet of hardware and software across a plethora of industries from health and fitness, to restaurants, and beyond.

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