As expected, Apple made some big announcements this September – a bigger iPhone, a new smartwatch, and Apple Pay, a payment solution that some say will send credit cards the way of the dinosaur. What’s Apple Pay? Here’s how Apple describes it:

"Apple Pay lets you use iPhone 6 to pay in stores and within apps in an easy, secure, and private way."

"To pay, just hold your iPhone near the contactless reader with your finger on Touch ID. You don’t even have to look at the screen to know your payment information was successfully sent. A subtle vibration and beep lets you know."

Apple Pay doesn’t store or transfer your credit or debit card information when you make purchases, which makes the transactions more secure. Instead, it assigns a unique code on your phone (based on your credit card number), encrypts the code, and authorizes transactions with a token that can only be used once. Merchants don’t have access to your credit card information, so the risk of having your payment information stolen in a data breach is much lower. This article from the Wall Street Journal does a great job of explaining the technical side of the transaction processing with Apple Pay.

To be clear, Apple didn’t invent the idea of making payments with a mobile device. Google introduced Google Wallet in September 2011, but it never really gained much traction, despite that Android phones and many merchant point of sale systems have had near field communications capabilities for years.

Before Google Wallet, three major credit card processing networks had their own version of contactless payments.

MasterCard had Paypass, American Express had ExpressPay and Visa had payWave. None ever gained significant traction. Perhaps the unfortunate Target and Home Depot data breaches have brought our attention to the vulnerability of our payment data.

According to Apple’s website, several retailers have already signed up to accept Apple Pay. Whole Foods, Walgreens, Staples, McDonalds, Macy’s, Toys R Us, and Walt Disney Parks and Resorts are among the first to accept payments via Apple Pay. Some of the big banks are on board too: Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citi, and Wells Fargo.

It’s not a surprise that merchants and banks have already signed on. They bear the brunt of data breaches and other fraudulent credit card charges. Consumers are never liable for charges made on hacked credit card accounts, thanks to zero fraud liability from credit card processing networks.

Not everyone is on Apple’s bandwagon. According to another Wall Street Journal article, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and possibly Target, are going with a different company - Merchant Customer Exchange – to handle their contactless payments. The company’s app can be used on iPhones and devices running Android. Can Apple Pay succeed without the nation’s largest retailers on board?

There’s a lot of buzz about Apple Pay, but it may be years before their contactless payment solution completely replace credit card swipes. People will need to have the latest iPhone to even have the capability of making contactless payments, via Apple Pay at least. Not only that, more merchants will have to upgrade their technology to accept the payments. Apple has already enlisted a lot of retailers, but 220,000 is just a small percentage of the total market. Millions more retailers need to adopt near field communications technology for Apple Pay to be a major factor.

From a consumer standpoint, Apple Pay isn’t that much better, faster, or easier than using a credit card. You have to pull your phone from your pocket or your purse, just like you pull your credit cards from your wallet or purchase. Then, you have to hold your finger on the Touch ID for the payment to process. It’s not really that much easier than swiping a credit card.

And what if you don’t have your phone with you or if your phone battery is dead? You’ll still have to use a credit card. Good luck if you left your wallet at home because you thought you could rely on your mobile phone for payments. You can’t send someone else to the store to make a purchase for you, because the iPhone requires your fingerprint to make the purchase. You’d have to send them with your credit card. If you don’t have an iPhone 6 or an iPhone 5 or 5c along with the Apple Watch, you’d better have your credit card.

If nothing else, Apple is getting us all ready for the time that contactless payments are really the norm. You can safely hang on to your plastic for now. After all, there are still people who write checks.