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Apple Plans iPhone for Japan With Tap-to-Pay for Subways

bloomberg.com

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Re: Apple Plans iPhone for Japan With Tap-to-Pay for Subways

#11

Post by dvcrn »

A FeliCa based iPhone? I will buy it instantly.

For a long time Android phones had the lead when it comes to paying digitally with phones in Japan and Korea. Their open NFC API allows for all sort of cool things like reading the balance of your card.

Japan has FeliCa more or less everywhere. Close to all IC cards are based around it and even in the time before smartphones, people in Japan were already able to pay with their feature phones which featured FeliCa chips. Nowadays you still need a special Android phone that supports it, though lately you can also get Samsung ones.

In Korea there are luckily close to no FeliCa terminals but still an iPhone is useless.

Providers here in Japan even started selling "NFC cases" that you put your iPhone in which then connects via bluetooth with the phone -- just so you can pay with your phone.

Bringing this in will be a huge deal. I know a lot of people who pick Android purely because they can pay with it. There are even a lot of people who have 2 phones, one iPhone that is their main phone and one purely for paying digitally.

Re: Apple Plans iPhone for Japan With Tap-to-Pay for Subways

#13

Post by veidr »

dcw303 wrote: post #6
FreakyT wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which Android phones support the IC Card system? I know my Nexus 5X only supports NFC.

I don't know. Here's a page that shows Suica support for JR; I have no idea if the subway companies use the same. I would generally think it would be Japanese handset manufacturers, so Sony, Sharp, etc. https://www.jreast.co.jp/mobilesuica/whats/models.html

IC cards for trains had a grand unification a few years back; Suica used to work only on JR but now works on subway etc. (Progress FTW!)

Re: Apple Plans iPhone for Japan With Tap-to-Pay for Subways

#15

Post by scurvy »

Why not just make an iPhone case that has a carve-out for the payment card? That way you can use your payment card and not need your phone, too (like going outdoors, to the beach, etc).

I ask because I've already seen iPhone cases like this in Japan. I use one with my Clipper card.

Re: Apple Plans iPhone for Japan With Tap-to-Pay for Subways

#17

Post by darren_ »

dcw303 wrote: post #3

Finally. It's rather annoying taking out my Pasmo to get through the subway barriers when I can see Android users going through with a tap. Also, the article mentions mass transit navigation is coming for Maps. If that happens I'll get rid of Google Maps, which is almost useless as it now forces me to log in before doing anything useful.

> as it now forces me to log in before doing anything useful.

It's still useful without logging in, searches and directions still work fine, they just have a big ugly prompt telling you to log-in. Just ignore it. The main functional things missing are stars, offline, and the personalized suggestion things that appear when you tap search boxes (which regrettably includes recent search history, probably the biggest thing missing from the not-signed-in experience).

(disclaimer etc: I work on google maps for iOS)

Re: Apple Plans iPhone for Japan With Tap-to-Pay for Subways

#18

Post by igravious »

darren_ wrote: post #17
dcw303 wrote: post #3

Finally. It's rather annoying taking out my Pasmo to get through the subway barriers when I can see Android users going through with a tap. Also, the article mentions mass transit navigation is coming for Maps. If that happens I'll get rid of Google Maps, which is almost useless as it now forces me to log in before doing anything useful.

> as it now forces me to log in before doing anything useful. It's still useful without logging in, searches and directions still work fine, they just have a big ugly prompt telling you to log-in. Just ignore it. The main functional things missing are stars, offline, and the personalized suggestion things that appear when you tap search boxes (which regrettably includes recent search history, probably the biggest thi…

> (which regrettably includes recent search history, probably the biggest thing missing from the not-signed-in experience)

You work on it, why not change that? :)

Re: Apple Plans iPhone for Japan With Tap-to-Pay for Subways

#20

Post by dcw303 »

darren_ wrote: post #17
dcw303 wrote: post #3

Finally. It's rather annoying taking out my Pasmo to get through the subway barriers when I can see Android users going through with a tap. Also, the article mentions mass transit navigation is coming for Maps. If that happens I'll get rid of Google Maps, which is almost useless as it now forces me to log in before doing anything useful.

> as it now forces me to log in before doing anything useful. It's still useful without logging in, searches and directions still work fine, they just have a big ugly prompt telling you to log-in. Just ignore it. The main functional things missing are stars, offline, and the personalized suggestion things that appear when you tap search boxes (which regrettably includes recent search history, probably the biggest thi…

> It's still useful without logging in, searches and directions still work fine

Interesting, this was the problem I was having, directions and/or directions from search results weren't working if I wasn't logged in. I just tried again and there's no problem, as you said.

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