Introducing Clover Mobile

Clover Mobile, the world's first mobile, integrated POS device with EMV chip card,
NFC contactless, and on-screen PIN entry. 

Clover’s mission is to put an API on every store on the planet. This was born out of the frustrations that we as app developers targeting merchants had: it was difficult to impossible to build and distribute our innovations to small- and medium-business. We've made great strides over the past year, having sold nearly 30,000 Clover Stations through our parent company, First Data, and their merchant acquiring partners such as Bank of America, Wells Fargo, PNC, and SunTrust. We've launch the Clover App Market, where many apps are now live and many are in development.

Today we take a giant leap forward in achieving our mission: we’re proud to introduce Clover Mobile, the world’s first integrated, open, mobile POS system with all modern payment interfaces: EMV chip card reader, NFC reader, magnetic stripe reader, on-screen PIN entry, and 1D/2D barcode scanner. We believe Clover Mobile will become the “swiss-army knife” computing device in stores, and we're inviting you to develop apps for it.

A Better Terminal

The humble single-function payment terminal is the most ubiquitous device in real-world commerce. There are 17 million payment terminals sold every year worldwide. Clover Mobile may be used only as a payment terminal at a shop on day 1, but on days 2, 3, and 4 it will be used for loyalty programs, CRM, voucher and coupon redemption, employee time cards/scheduling/management/payroll, physical+mobile gift cards, inventory management, alternative payments, customer membership programs, and the full integrated POS system over time. We find that many of these apps either have payments somewhere in their flows, or are better because of the integration in some key way. We’re not picking the winners and are not so arrogant we think we can do everything ourselves: this is why we have an open API both on the device side (where you can write Android apps) and on the cloud (with our REST-ful web APIs).

Design Thinking & Technical Details

Clover Mobile is a modern tablet augmented with payment superpowers:

• Quad-core Tegra 4 SoC
• Clover’s hardened version of Android (AOSP) 4.4
• 7" 1280x800 display
• Dedicated secure processor for payment interfaces
• EMV chip card reader, NFC reader, MSR reader
• On-screen PIN entry (w/ solution for the visually impaired)
• World-class 1D/2D trigger-activated barcode scanner
• LSR rubber bezel and handle base for soft landings
• Charging base
• WiFi, Bluetooth (w/ Bluetooth LE/Smart), and optional 3G
• Bluetooth+BLE thermal receipt printer

Clover Mobile has a rather distinct feature for a tablet: a handle. We wanted to build an industrial-class device without appearing industrial. The handle makes the device easy to carry all day long while scanning barcodes, inserting chip cards, and swiping. It also provides an integrated stand for presenting the device to customers.

Start Developing Now

We'll be providing a developer hardware program soon (sign up here if you're interested). Until then, get started at www.clover.com/developers. The Android and Web APIs that exist for Clover Station all work on Clover Mobile, and there will be a number of APIs specific to Clover Mobile's unique features, primarily around secure payments. You can build any app you want, using our secure payment application.