One of the many groundbreaking announcements by Apple during Tuesday's iPhone 6 and Apple Watch unveiling was a new payment system for the real world simply called "Pay." Here's everything Apple has revealed so far.

Apple is tying the new Pay digital-payments system to its new iPhone 6 smartphones and the Apple Watch, using near-field communication (NFC) and Apple's secure Touch ID sensor to make no-touch digital payment easy and ubiquitous -- Apple hopes.

So far, several digital payment systems are already on the market, but no single "digital wallet" has taken off with consumers. Apple's "Pay" may be different.

Ubiquitous, Already

The first thing you need for a payment system to take off with consumers is, obviously, ease of use with the places they buy things, using the payment systems consumers already use. Apple thinks it has this in the bag before launch.

Apple CEO Tim Cook took the stage to show how many places and credit card systems Pay is already partnered with, including Visa, MasterCard and American Express (no Discover yet). Those cards can be input into the Apple Passbook app just by taking a picture of the card, after which Apple will contact the companies to confirm it's your card. Part of Apple's advantage, though, is that many users' credit cards are already tied to the iTunes store, so those are ready to go right off the bat.

Several common stores like McDonalds, Whole Foods (which got a huge round of applause by the Cupertino, California audience), Subway, Macy's and many, many more are ready with NFC payment systems compatible with the iPhone 6-based "Pay" ahead of the device's launch. Apple says its Pay system will work at more than 200,000 merchants and stores, and places like Disney World by Christmas -- along with apps from Target, Groupon, OpenTable and others.

Security

Security is obviously one of the most important aspects of digital payment systems, especially after a year of hackings at major stores like Target and, recently, Home Depot. Tim Cook called the current payment system "fairly antiquated" and promised that with Pay, your information would be more secure.

Part of the security comes from the integration of the NFC payment technology with Apple's Touch ID fingerprint scanning button, which Apple introduced last year as part of the iPhone 5s. But another aspect of security brought by Apple into Pay is the "one-time security code," which Apple Pay will generate for each transaction, rather than the one, continuous code that doesn't change on the back of your credit card.

In addition, if your iPhone is lost or stolen, you can suspend payments from your account.

With the introduction of Pay, digital mobile payment might finally take off, and according to Gartner research, it's estimated that the volume of NFC-based payments will hit as high as $720 billion by 2017.

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