Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 736 posts

Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#161

Post by macintux »

staplung wrote: post #139

I was using my phone for contactless pay but stopped during the pandemic because I realized it was more cumbersome than using a credit card to do the same thing. The phone tries to scan my face, fails because of the mask, then just waits for a hot second to see if my face might change shape, then prompts for a password. With the credit card, I just swipe it over the reader and I'm done.

I use my Watch, which is almost always simpler even without a mask.

However, you should be able to hurry it along to prompt for a password. Apple doesn’t make it easily discoverable, but if you tap on the status message when it’s trying to decide whether it recognizes you, it will prompt you for a password instead (while logging in, and I imagine during Apple Pay as well).

Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#162

Post by [deleted] »

staplung wrote: post #139

I was using my phone for contactless pay but stopped during the pandemic because I realized it was more cumbersome than using a credit card to do the same thing. The phone tries to scan my face, fails because of the mask, then just waits for a hot second to see if my face might change shape, then prompts for a password. With the credit card, I just swipe it over the reader and I'm done.

[deleted]

Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#163

Post by joshvm »

hunter2_ wrote: post #61
gandalfian wrote: post #31

Whinge: but the term "Tap to Pay" winds me up. "Hover to Pay" maybe, or "Contactless" makes sense. But tap the card reader with your card and you disturb the touchscreen and cancel the payment. Don't tap it's a trick.

Yeah, I never understood why "tap" and "contactless" became synonymous in this context, given that "tap" is an onomatopoeia for the sound of two objects making contact . Is it possible that "contactless" actually refers to lack of electrical contacts (i.e., not using the gold pads)? We already have plenty of words for this idea: radio, wireless, inductive. Or is the intent to mean no physical contact whatsoever such…

It's physically easier to touch the reader than to hover over it? Especially if the reader is a bit janky/older and takes time to complete the transaction. If you look at Oyster (TFL) for example, most people physically touch their cards to the turnstile/bus readers. The official advertising also uses the phrase "tap in, tap out" for stations where there are no barriers. "Contactless" is also fairly widely used in the UK - e.g. "do you take contactless?". Contactless is because in theory you don't need to touch your card to the reader. My new phone seems to have a good enough antenna (active?) that it triggers the POS terminal much further away than my debit card, but usually the activation distance is small enough that tapping is easier.

Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#164

Post by hunter2_ »

arnarbi wrote: post #144
skeeter2020 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't confuse the restaurant industry where tips subsidize wages with the original idea of tipping as a sign of gratitude an thanks. A tip can be a meaningful and impactful way to say "You went beyond expectation, did an awesome job and I really appreciate it". Why would you not want that option?

Because it doesn’t actually work that way and it’s in no way an “option”. In reality tipping becomes expected and people withhold it when the service does /not/ meet expectation. That’s awkward and too confrontational for a lot of people so they’ll just tip anyways. Personally I also find it exhausting to have to judge every single service I get. So I just tip a standard amount, there’s absolutely no feedback involve…

For situations where laws allow for sub-standard wages, such as restaurant wait staff, I agree with you. It's not really an option, it's exhausting, there's no point.

For situations that aren't codified into law like that, it can more legitimately be modulated according to how the service made you feel, from zero to "keep the change" to a couple bucks to sky's the limit.

The former should be solved by abolishing tipping. The latter should be solved by technology that's somehow as frictionless as cash.

Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#165

Post by throwaway894345 »

eldaisfish wrote: post #116
throwaway894345 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I studied abroad in France in 2012--at this time, all European card readers had been chip-based for quite a while and my US credit card didn't have one. I couldn't figure out how to use them and many store clerks had no idea what to do with my magnetic-strip credit card. I went to England in 2019, at which point cards in the US had been updated to use magnetic stripes, and everyone was using tap-to-pay. It turns out…

worth mentioning that this seems a problem limited to the US. Even in Canada, the smallest of towns will have contactless payment. Many Canadians don't really use cash because interac/credit cards have all supported tap to pay for over a decade now.

To be clear, the US has contactless payments all over and probably has had them since ~2015, it just took some time for people to "discover" them.

Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#166

Post by exikyut »

gandalfian wrote: post #31

Whinge: but the term "Tap to Pay" winds me up. "Hover to Pay" maybe, or "Contactless" makes sense. But tap the card reader with your card and you disturb the touchscreen and cancel the payment. Don't tap it's a trick.

To me "tap to pay" encodes immediate-term incidentality and proximity.

It's three syllables, it rolls off the tongue when you say it, it takes maybe 450ms to speak, and the brain can encode it using similar (or maybe the same?) mechanisms to how brand names and word combinations are captured without parsing/questioning when very young. This is one of many factors that contributes to a sort of "flow" that combats the "oooooooooh that sounds complicated"-of-death that stands to kill new complex digital products that need to be adopted en mass to function.

"Tap" also encodes "move near reader" but does so by suggesting that you move too close. Thus you'll either have people moving well within the active area (at which point the transaction may even be able to start and complete by the time it's been tapped). It's also physically easier for me to physically execute "tap object against other object" than "hover object 1cm in front of other object", especially when moving.

If you want something to scale, you need fail-safe design. My local bus transit system has a giant (but featureless) NFC pad with a screen saying "Tap here " above it. The number of people I see tapping the screen is... the screen should obviously say "below", the active area should have a ring of LEDs around it, etc etc etc; it's broken design. However, I've also seen people doing the same thing (tapping the screen) with payment terminals. In situations like this, you're designing the system to be viable for the dumbest user.

Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#167

Post by ucha »

EDIT: thanks everyone for quickly correcting my mistake, I missed the part that explained that more forms of contactless payments would be accepted

I don't really understand why a merchant would use this feature.

If you already use a PoS, why would you replace it with another one that only supports customers who own an Apple device?

If you accepted only cash, maybe it's a small improvement because you can use your existing iPhone if you had one to accept cashless payments from Apple customers...

Does Tap to Pay only make sense in the second case or am I missing something?

Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#169

Post by hn_throwaway_69 »

mike1o1 wrote: post #82
yuuu wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had movers a couple months ago and tried to tip them. Note that I don't ever carry cash and am a proponent of abolishing the Federal Reserve. I asked them for their Ethereum or Bitcoin address, and they said, "neither of us don't have that, but we take cash." I calmly tried to explain to them the evils of the Federal Reserve for around five minutes, then began to set them up with their own cryptocurrency wallets on…

I can't tell if this is satire or not.

Print and frame this content chain as a fine example of Poe's law.

Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#170

Post by kingkawn »

melling wrote: post #23
sabjut wrote: post #14

Clarification due to a somewhat confusing title: This is about the merchant using an iPhone to accept credit cards and other Tap to Pay devices. The customer was able to pay with Tap to Pay with their iPhone for a while now.

The long slow road to contactless payments. Almost 2 decades along in the technology adoption curve. I was ready for this in 2005. https://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/debt-manage... If course as the article points out, it wasn’t even new technology back then: “ Not Exactly New Tech Mobile introduced the Speedpass in 1997. Speedpass is a small device on a keychain (called a fob) that users wave in front o…

Had speedpass back when it first came out, great technology for the time
Post reply on HN