Does anyone with the new square stand have issues with the crappy afterthought of their mag

[Yuletide]

Does anyone with the new square stand have issues with the crappy afterthought of their magstripe reader not working? It’s also disconnecting music we have running off of iPad. We need this feature for issuing square gift cards, etc. Square dropped the ball by not having this formerly built in essential. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Donnie-M]

@Yuletide Are you talking about the actual square register? or the square stand v.2.0?  If you want to get away from this on the square stand, I recommend pickup up a square terminal.  You can then send the orders to the terminal for payment and it can dip, tap, & swipe all in one.

[Yuletide]

The stand. Wish I had known before I purchased the new stand and iPad through Square! Only had to do that due to my former iPad being too old for updates! Ugggh

[ryanwanner · Accepted solution]

Hello @Yuletide !

Yes, the magstripe reader on the v2 stand does seem like an afterthought, but that is because slowly but steadily the industry is moving away from swipe cards. This is Square's way of pushing us that direction.

For gift cards, if the magstripe reader isn't working, you may be able to use the tablet's camera to scan the QR code on the back of the card. If the card is too old for there to be a code, you can always manually enter the number. Manually entering gift card numbers doesn't charge you anything extra.

As for the music, please be careful. If you don't have a business-specific service like Sirius for Business or Pandora for Business, you may end up seeing a nastygram from ASCAP, BMI, or Universal for royalty fees, especially if you have a space that's open to the public. They can total about $1800/year.

[Yuletide]

Thank you! I think I figured out I can swipe to take payments if needed, but my older gift cards' numbers have to be input manually upon selling them. They don't swipe at that point. 

[rtfulk]

The card swiper is less than ideal and sometimes hard to swipe, the reason you loose your music is the swiper takes over the audio jack making the iPad think headphones are plugged in. I would suggest getting an old iPhone or android phone to play your music. We use Pandora Cloud Cover for 18.95 it’s good insurance not to get a letter from the music companies.

[Summer2024]

Thank you all @rtfulk @ryanwanner and @Donnie-M for providing your insights and advice here. 

@Yuletide please let us know if you have any other questions!