NSFW is a weekly op-ed column in which I talk about whatever’s on my mind. Sometimes it’ll have something to do with the technology we cover here on iMore; sometimes it’ll be whatever pops into my head. Your questions, comments and observations are welcome.

It’ll be no surprise to you to read that I’m pitched on new products all the time. Every day I get dozens of email solicitations from developers, marketing and PR people to cover new products for iMore. And many of them have variations on this:

”How much will it cost for our product to be written about on iMore?”

The answer is: Nothing. We don’t take a dime to cover any product on iMore. In fact, even the suggestion that we would is horribly insulting to our sense of ethics. Unfortunately, not all web sites are so inclined.

The sad part of this is that developers asking to pay for editorial placement are doing so because they’re conditioned to do so. This is how some smaller sites work. They want money anywhere they can find it — ad revenue on the viewer side, and paid editorial placement on the developer side. And it’s a shitty way to do business.

We’ve heard a lot this past year about ”journalistic ethics.” Whether you’re a print publication or an online pub, there are a few basic guidelines that cover the operations of editorial departments which have to be followed if you have a snowball’s chance in hell of resembling anything to do with journalistic ethics. And at the very top of that list: Advertisers can’t influence or compromise editorial coverage. And paying for coverage does exactly that. At the very least, it gives the perception of it, which is just as bad, if not worse.

This is something that’s taught in every introductory ethics course in any journalism school around the world. Unfortunately, a lot of the operators of smaller blogs either haven’t gone to J-school or just don’t give a shit. And it smears the entire industry as a result.

No one running a blog can claim ignorance on this front — no one. I didn’t go to J-school. I learned how to be a journalist on the job. Despite that, ”separation of church [editorial] and state [advertising]” was something that I learned very early. In order for readers to trust your editorial voice, they have to trust that voice hasn’t been paid for by someone with an ulterior motive.

Obviously sites aren’t charities. We have expenses and families to feed. One of the chief ways many sites make money is to sell advertising space. Nothing wrong with that. It’s pretty crucial, though, that the business people handling the advertising aren’t the same as the people writing about the products.

What’s more, there should never be a point where a company tries to leverage that relationship to gain favor, editorially. They should never say ”I’ll pull my advertising unless I get a good review,” and they should never, ever say ”I’ll pay you to review my product.”

That’s what gets my goat about this so badly. For the most part, these are companies and products I’ve never heard of, and the first comment out of the gate is ”how much does a review cost?” It taints the entire relationship for me. I’m sure I’ve overlooked covering products that were probably pretty good, for exactly this reason.

Let me speak plainly: There is no quicker way for me to a) ignore your product and b) blacklist your company from further coverage than for you to ask me how much my editorial voice costs.

To be sure, the vast majority of the sites that you probably have bookmarked or linked in your RSS reader do not, under any circumstances, take money for editorial coverage, and have never done so.

iMore is certainly one of those.

Anyway, time for me to get off my soapbox. That is all.

Apple Pay — or Pay — launched in October of 2014 as part of iOS 8.1. It enabled the NFC-based tap-to-pay system in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, and the online payment system in both iPhones 6 and the iPad mini 3 and iPad Air 2. While it hasn’t yet rolled out internationally, Apple Pay has expanded to more banks, retailers, and apps in the U.S. We went in-store with it at launch, but how’s Apple Pay doing now, some three months later?

Apple Pay and banks

Peter: My bank was there on day one, and I had absolutely no problem signing up my debit card in Apple Pay. I know a lot of other people haven’t been as lucky. One of the few times I’ve been happy to be with my giant, monolithic, massively unfriendly and expensive bank.

Ally: I have lots of different cards in Apple Pay and for the most part I’ve had zero problem. Everything works as I’d expect it to. However, a month or so ago I restored my iPhone 6 Plus and since then I haven’t been able to get one of my cards added back. The recent iOS update that was supposed to address that particular Apple Pay issue unfortunately hasn’t worked for me either. Calls to my issuer haven’t helped either.

Ren: I’m with Peter — I was lucky in that my major debit and credit cards all supported Apple Pay at launch, and I’ve had no real problems with them. (Though the initial add process did require a couple of random steps, including sending confirmation codes to a phone number I haven’t had on file in four years.)

Apple Pay at retail

Peter: I’ve used Apple Pay a precious few times and it’s worked out quite well, but I have to be frank: I don’t shop at most of the places it’s taken. The places I do shop most frequently, including my grocery store and my pharmacy, aren’t yet signed up. So Apple Pay has, for me anyway, been an interesting curiosity. But it really hasn’t moved into a daily use for me yet.

Ally: When actually using Apple Pay, the process is painless. Just tap and done. The only time I’ve found the process slightly odd is when using self checkouts. The ones are our local grocery stores are a little finicky and don’t always seem to activate tap payments. Other than that, the experience has been pleasant.

Ren: I used Apple Pay a lot when it first launched, in part for novelty, but I’ve really grown to love using it. My pharmacy and three grocery stores in my area take it, and I keep on running into other places that take it. (For awhile, I’d tap my iPhone at any register that looked like it might take contactless payments… just in case.)

Apple Pay in-apps

Peter: I actually haven’t used Apple Pay in apps once. I admit I’m on a limited budget to begin with, so I don’t do a lot of in-app shopping anyway, but it really hasn’t come up for me even as a possibility.

Ally: I’ve only used Apple Pay with the Apple Store app when purchasing a case for my iPhone 6 Plus. It was a heck of a lot easier than entering all my details or having to change them from what is in my iTunes account. I’m sure I’ll end up using it more and more as different merchants start supporting the functionality.

Ren: I’ve actually started using Panera’s in-app Apple Pay to place advance orders rather than wait in line — it’s much faster, and there’s no hassle about finding a payment option to input into my iPhone, since my credit card info is already stored. (It’s also an easy way for my purchases to count toward Panera’s loyalty program, as in-store Apple Pay doesn’t register that you’re a member without flashing your MyPanera card.)

I’ve used the Apple Store’s app to buy things while in the store, as well, but it feels a lot weirder to use than Panera’s or Target’s; I’m guessing that’s because I’m actually in the store, but not dealing with people.

Apple Pay evolution

Rene: Canada! (You expected nothing less, and I would not disappoint!). Seriously, though. International rollout feels inevitable. So does support for loyalty programs. I don’t know if there would ever be Apple Point, redeemable for iTunes credit, but I’d love to my Lego VIP card in there. Also, there’s the whole world of consumer-to-consumer transactions to get into. People have been begging for a PayPal alternative for years. Maybe Apple Pay could be just that?

Ren: Though I haven’t spent much time abroad in the last three months, I would love for Apple Pay to take hold in Canada and the UK; I’m planning trips to both in the near future, and it would be swell to not have to worry about my wallet while traveling.

And though I don’t think the company’s ”Year of Apple Pay” will be doomed without loyalty cards or frequent customer attachments, I’d really like to be able to connect things like my Panera card to my purchases there — right now, it’s easier to order in advance through the app than pay in-store with Apple Pay and then pull out my Panera card.

Finally, more merchants supporting it. I wish CurrentC would die in a fiery pit, but at the least, some of its supporters are aging out of their original exclusivity contracts — hopefully that means we’ll see retailers like Target (who already support Apple Pay in-app) using the in-store kiosks, as well.

Peter: MOAR VENDORS. Apple Pay has already succeeded where other digital payment systems have failed, but it’s nothing approaching critical mass. Major retailers still don’t have support for Apple Pay, and many banks don’t either. It’s also a complete non-entity outside the United States.

Bottom line

Peter: Apple Pay is everything I wanted in a mobile payment system: Elegant, fast, secure. If Apple can get the entire world using it, more the better. In the interim, Apple Pay is still squarely a novelty for me. I use it whenever I can, but for what I’ve been spending money on since it was introduced, that’s not that much.

Rene: I share Tim Cook’s bullishness on the future of Apple Pay. It does so many things right that, given enough time, adoption, and propagation, I think it could fundamentally transform how I pay for things on a daily basis. It could end up being a bigger deal than even the current crop of devices because it’s not just another device — it’s another service for all devices.

Ren: Using Apple Pay is awesome and keeps me from pulling out my credit card all the time, but it’s not so widespread that I can just leave my wallet at home. I’m hoping 2015 is the year enough of my merchants begin accepting Apple Pay that I can consider actually going phone-only and saving some of that pocket space for, say, an extra battery for my iPhone. I also wouldn’t mind some sort of loyalty program integration. (Fingers crossed!)

Ally: I love the idea of Apple Pay and what it offers. The only barrier is merchants adopting it within the United States. It’s kind of ironic since it’s only available in the the US yet our country is pathetically behind when it comes to NFC and payment technology in general. Let’s hope the next year or so changes that.

Jeff Williams, senior vice president of operations at Apple, took over day-to-day leadership of the ops team following Tim Cook’s transition from Chief Operating Officer (COO) to Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Since then Apple has shipped a flabbergasting number of iPhones, a huge number of Macs and iPads, and started ramping up to ship the first batch of Apple Watches. To say Williams runs the best ops team in the business does him and them a disservice — No one else even comes close. That’s no dount why he’s getting some much-deserved attention following Apple’s blow-out Q1 2015 results. Neil Cybart, writing for Above Avalon:

One thing became abundantly clear after analyzing Apple’s recent earnings report: Jeff Williams is doing a phenomenal job. As senior vice president of Operations, Williams is tasked with making sure the Apple machine is well-oiled and in tip-top shape, not only capable of producing more than 100 million iOS devices in a quarter, but building flexibility into the system to handle annual hardware updates that would make most hardware companies quiver with fear.

John Gruber, writing for Daring Fireball:

First, in terms of iPhone operations and considering nothing else, Jeff Williams has clearly done an amazing job. Apple sold a record 74 million iPhones last quarter, and though the company doesn’t break that down by models for competitive reasons, everyone knows that a huge chunk of those were the brand-new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. They were supply-constrained on both models, particularly the 6 Plus, but only by a few weeks. Operationally Apple did an incredible job meeting demand for iPhones — they sold more than ever but were less supply-constrained than in the last few launch quarters. For context, in 2008, Apple sold a total 10 million iPhones for the entire year. All credit to the hardware, software, and product marketing teams for the fact that 74 million people wanted to buy an iPhone last quarter. But the credit goes to Williams’s operations team that there were 74 million units available to sell.

There was a story, I believe passed along by Gruber, about how someone asked how the original iPad came to be, and the answer they got was Steve Jobs. When they asked how it came to cost only $500, the answer they got was Tim Cook. Today, Jeff Williams is running the Apple Watch team, and when it comes costing only $349, he’ll be a huge part of that answer.

Behind Tim Cook’s mantra of ”making the great products” is Apple’s ability to make customers believe they’re getting value far beyond the cost. Part of that value equation, now like then, is thanks to the ops team, and at a scale that dwarfs anything else we’ve ever seen before.

For that, Jeff Williams and his entire org deserves not only a ton of attention, but ton of credit as well.