- Square likely has an exclusive or near-exclusive deal with Starbucks.
- Starbucks has fairly close ties to Apple, if such a system were coming they'd want to be sure Starbucks was involved (so they'd already know about it)
- Assuming #2 is true anyway, that would make the $25 million investment incredibly risky; their stock would be murdered once the news came out.
(Side note: assuming all of the above, this essentially kills any rumors of Apple buying Square; why would Starbucks bother investing in them and getting on the board?)
The interesting thing is at the Apple keynote they announced Passbook and showed a Starbucks card, the passbook product is lacklustre in comparison. This shows Apple is betting on this and Starbucks would rather go with a solution that fits in with their current message (using your name).
I'd totally forgotten about that demo. So either Apple doesn't have a first-party payment system in the works (I honestly don't blame them, it's hard business) that they've told anyone about, or they do and Starbucks said no thanks.
Actually, if Apple had an interest in Square, wouldn't it then be a shrewd move for Starbucks to invest and get on the board? Buying into a company not long before it's acquired can be a great way to make a buck.
It will be there in iOS 6. The Passbook framework will allow Starbucks to create a representation of my existing Starbucks card in Passbook, which also starts laying the groundwork for NFC integration one day by beginning to replace the wallet.
