If you know the company Square, it's probably because you've paid in a store using a Square “stand,” a dock that supports a tablet, or you've swiped your card through Square Reader, a smartphone dongle that processes payments. These products have a soothing, decidedly Apple-y aesthetic, from the simple dongle to the all-white stand that typically houses an iPad[1]. But since late last year, Square has been quietly selling its own custom-made tablet, the Square Register, a $999, Android-based system. And the company has taken an obsessive approach to designing the product.
It caught my eye during a recent visit to the company, where it’s set up to accept payments in an employee cafe. The most noticeable part of the device is the large, 13-inch anodized aluminum tablet that sellers uses; it's as if a MacBook and an Android tablet got together and made a cash register. It struck me that Square has put a whole lot of effort into something that’s ultimately supposed to blend into the background. If it wasn’t a modernized cash register, it would almost make you want to buy one and use it as a tablet.
OK, not really; streaming Netflix on something designed to be a point-of-sale-system is a terrible idea, worse than watching movies on a Linux-based in-flight entertainment system. And while the Square Register looks like a premium product, it’s intentionally stripped down in ways that means it wouldn’t work at all as a consumer product. Example: It needs to be connected to power at all times.
But Square’s custom-made regist-ablet is something that gives the company an alternative to other tablets, including Apple’s iPad, and is indicative of how serious Square is about controlling the whole payments experience. Over the past few...