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Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

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

#221

Post by bladegash »

tut-urut-utut wrote: post #85
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.

I honestly don't see what's so revolutionary about this. Why would anyone shell out multiple hundreds of € when a device that accepts payments can be purchased for a fraction of the iPhone price? E.g the most expensive device here [1] is only 120 €, and it can also print the bill. The cheapest that does the job is a mere 20 €.

You haven’t seen businesses using things like Square on an iPad or iPhone as a pseudo POS system? Square even has a contactless reader on the Apple Store. Presumably, now businesses do not have to use those third parties anymore.

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

#222

Post by laumars »

stu2b50 wrote: post #113
tut-urut-utut wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't see what's so revolutionary about this. Why would anyone shell out multiple hundreds of € when a device that accepts payments can be purchased for a fraction of the iPhone price? E.g the most expensive device here [1] is only 120 €, and it can also print the bill. The cheapest that does the job is a mere 20 €.

Because a lot of people, going by the sales numbers, have iPhones? It’s more for very small businesses, who just need a quick and easy way to take card payments. Larger outfits will naturally invest in “real” PoS devices.

I can’t speak for America but in the U.K. there have been terminals that do this that small independent businesses have used for years. They connect to your phone too and work with both Android and iOS. You see taxis, street food sellers and all sorts using them. They also cheap and yet still look a hell of a lot more professional than this thing does.

https://merchantmachine.co.uk/contactless/

Note that some of these even have chip and pin readers for those without contactless.

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

#223

Post by tuyiown »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #81
jacquesm wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU has contactless paying for a while now, but it uses a chip embedded in the bank card.

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…

For france: contactless on phone should be ok with widely used card providers (VISA)

Beware, since covid, use of cash has dramatically fallen, last month a restaurant struggled to give me 2€ change, they didn't have 2€ in cash ! Paying in cash with the right amount should never be a problem though.

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

#224

Post by throwaway22032 »

Hacker News is such a bizarre place.

On the one hand, we have threads about how browsers are fingerprintable and some app is using telemetry and endless discussions on theoretical zero-knowledge protocols and the importance of cryptography and Snowden saying this and that that get voted up to the top.

On the other hand, something like this comes up which is basically another step along the "no-one accepts cash" funnel and so now everything you ever buy with metadata is part of the borg. Like, you've literally deliberately introduced an MiTM.

I don't get this blind spot. Paying with cash is literally the easiest thing I do to reduce my data trail.

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

#225

Post by larkost »

jurmous wrote: post #111
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…

We in The Netherlands are one of the most cashless societies in Europe. We mostly pay with our mobiles or contactless with banking cards. We even are "going Dutch" sharing our bills with what we call a Tikkie: One person pays the bill and then we send over instant messaging our payment request for money which can be payed directly with one click and authentication in banking app. One thing that is annoying for foreig…

For Americans visiting the Netherlands one word of caution: many of the pay terminals (especially the parking ones) do not seem to like U.S. cards, and even some the vendors from Europe. When we were on vacation there a few years ago it was a roulette game to figure out if parking meters would take my card or that of my father in law (from Hungary).

The problem is that they have a local exchange there, and do not have cross agreements with all of the payment vendors (not at the Visa level, but bellow that). It was annoying, and caused us a lot of hassle. I am not sure how we could have avoided it.

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

#226

Post by core-utility »

kesselvon wrote: post #120
mike1o1 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I feel it has to be. Who is tipping their movers only $5?

Transfer fees on Ethereum are currently $2.75, so either the movers got $2.25 or the dude paid an extra 55% just to pay them in something that's less useful for them.

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

#228

Post by sgerenser »

benbristow wrote: post #100
kilroy123 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in London tons of people and places have pay touch readers like this: https://imgur.com/nNaDddR I'm talking museums asking for donations. To street performers in the tube. They're everywhere.

The lollipop and aftershave man in my local nightclub's toilet has one. I'm tempted to give him a pound next time to see what pops up on my bank statement (and for some probably counterfeit cologne). For context: I don't know if they're a thing in the States but in most male toilets in nightclubs (and more 'clubby' bars) in the UK there's usually an annoying guy in the toilet who turns off the hand driers and gives y…

Yeah “restroom attendants” are definitely a thing in the US as well. I used to think it was stupid but from the club owner’s point of view it probably helps a lot to avoid vandalism, drug use, etc. that might otherwise occur in the bathrooms. I do end up seeing a lot of people just not wash their hands because they don’t like feeling obligated to tip the guy for handing them a paper towel.

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

#229

Post by [deleted] »

profmonocle wrote: post #209
melling wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Something I was thinking about the other day is how some modern credit cards technically have four different ways to pay. Swiping pressure-sensitive paper over the raised numbers (the original method) is still possible, though I haven't seen a merchant actually do this since maybe the mid-2000's. Then you have magstripe, chip, and RFID all in the same card. Pretty impressive backwards compatibility, although I think…

[deleted]

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

#230

Post by brimble »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #165
eldaisfish wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've only just gotten used to the slide-it-in-the-slot kind. Whatever that's called. The thing that's replacing the magnetic stripes, more or less.

I always forget about contactless. I think all my cards can do it? Not knowing for sure is why I never try, and just stick the card in the slot, which always works.

I think I've paid with my phone one time ever. For some reason I can't bring myself to trust it to work 100% of the time so I can leave my cards at home, at which point I may as well just use a card since I have 'em anyway. I guess I could start carrying phone + cash as a backup and skip the cards, but that's even less convenient. I do activate the payment screen (iPhone) all the time by accident, though I couldn't tell you how.

(I'm not even that old...)

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