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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

#361

Post by imnotrick »

praseodym wrote: post #338
MikeKusold wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying with your phone is actually more secure than the old mag-swipe method. Your phone will tokenize your credit card information, which makes it significantly harder to track credit card usage across various merchants. Of course it isn't as private as cash, but it is a step forward from mag-swipe. Square has a good explainer if you want to read more: https://squareup.com/us/en/townsquare/what-does-tokenization...

Apple Pay only tokenizes card information once when the card is added to the Apple Wallet on a device, not for every transaction. This means that usage for an on-device tokenized card can still be tracked until the card is removed and re-added.

I think you can also tap a button in the Wallet app that lets you generate a new token

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

#362

Post by moron4hire »

munk-a wrote: post #326
profmonocle wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Swiping pressure-sensitive paper over the raised numbers (the original method) is still possible I've seen this still happen occasionally in taxis - or rather I saw it happen within the past decade. When I last lived in the states I'd bump into it especially with rural taxis - I assume it's dying quickly though because it's incredibly inconvenient when compared to paying via an app or tapping. The lack of raised di…

I've had a lot of taxi drivers tell me they couldn't take credit cards at all. That is, until I tell them "I have no other way to pay, so I guess... later dude". Suddenly it's, "oh, oh, oh, the card reader is working again, look at that!"

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

#363

Post by glitchc »

yuuu wrote: post #67
TIPSIO wrote: post #47

I would really like to see it become normal for tipping people this way (that isn't at a cash register / tap) but with AirDrop. For example, I recently had movers. I went out of my way to get a cash tip for them earlier. It would have been nice to skip that and just ping it at them somehow without awkwardly saying "Hey friend do you have Venmo? Apple Pay? CashApp? I'd like to tip you. What's your phone number?! Let m…

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…

This is offensive. They would have to wait at least a day for their transaction to be settled on the chain.

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

#364

Post by vxNsr »

scrollaway wrote: post #346
munk-a wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Swiping pressure-sensitive paper over the raised numbers (the original method) is still possible I've seen this still happen occasionally in taxis - or rather I saw it happen within the past decade. When I last lived in the states I'd bump into it especially with rural taxis - I assume it's dying quickly though because it's incredibly inconvenient when compared to paying via an app or tapping. The lack of raised di…

Cards are slowly moving towards not having printed numbers at all, and having the numbers only available via the issuer's app or website. This allows for rotating numbers.

Care to share some examples? I’ve never seen this in the US

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

#365

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway22032 wrote: post #224

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" funne…

[deleted]

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

#366

Post by baxtr »

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…

I worked in the mobile industry back in 2010s. Every carrier had big shiny projects called "mobile payments" going on. They were exploring, together with banking partners how they could revolutionize contactless payments.

A key factor why all these project failed wasn't the technology. As you rightly point out, the technology was already available back then. It was mainly the vast differences in business models in the two industries: telcos and banking. The telcos were spoiled back then and expected any service to deliver a margin of at least 30%. Banks operated on a very different operating margin for the transactions. They never got that reconciled.

I remember back when Apple introduced Apple Pay many people were stunned by how little they charged. But in the end, that was their key insight to make this work. Quite impressive from a company with very high margins on their core products.

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

#367

Post by dathinab »

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…

If Apple wouldn't have effectively crippler innovation by not providing NFC (and later one locking it down) we probably would have contact less payment and many other similar services by now everywhere.

I know of multiple pilot projects and startups which where basically killed (or majorly revamped) because just supporting Android wasn't viable and Apples not showing any intention to support NFC.

The fact that the NFC we have now is missing a major feature of original NFC isn't helping either (the ability to act as a NFC card if the device it's embedded in is powered of/out of battery).

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

#368

Post by jedberg »

tantalor wrote: post #159
duxup wrote: post #26

Kinda weird. If a rando retail person pulls out their iPhone and asks me to tap... that's kinda strange in my mind. Something about "how do I know that isn't their personal phone?" would pop in my head. But things that seem awkward can become commonplace.

> how do I know that isn't their personal phone? Why would that be a concern to you? Either way you pay, get receipt, take your goods, and leave. It's not like you are stealing. Are you worried the clerk would MITM your payment and leave you without normal return/refund policy, since it wasn't a legit transaction?

If a random disheveled looking person comes up to you in the middle of a store and says "I can take your cash and give you a receipt", and they they show you a legit looking receipt, do you feel that it would be ok to give them money and take the receipt?

Sure, it's the store's job to make sure people aren't impersonating their employees and stealing their receipt papers, so that's on them right?

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

#369

Post by nly »

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…

The reverse problem is also true. As a Brit traveling in the US I was dumbfounded when a payment terminal asked for my zip code...of course i didn't have one and my card was rejected.

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

#370

Post by uptownfunk »

My local bakery doesn't even accept cash anymore. Probably a lot of places. I was explaining to my 3 year old that "a long time ago people used to pay with these green pieces of paper called money, now we use this thing called Apple Pay on our phones"
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