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Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

aruarian.dance

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Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#131

Post by [deleted] »

delfinom wrote: post #126
mrb wrote: post #108

"what makes Japan's transit card system (IC cards) so unique compared to the West" Actually other western transit system cards are similar to Japan's. For example in Paris the transit passes (Navigo cards) are stored-value systems and hold a record of the last few scans (three I think). You can also read them with any NFC smartphone and see what's stored inside. The tap at the entrance of a transit vehicle is near in…

Yea but the Japanese IC card system has complete interop between all transit systems run by completely different private companies. So you can hop on a train from one city to another and then hop on a bus in that new city on the other side of the country all using the same card. And a good chunk of vending machines in Japan accept the IC card. Sometimes even food shops a step above vending machines.

[deleted]

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#132

Post by ksec »

emursebrian wrote: post #117

I just got back from Japan. I did not notice a difference in performance between tapping with a Blink credit card and tapping with an IC card. I only used the ICOCA card. There were never lines at the gates. There were only ever brief lines at the ticket counters and terminals. I was there during golden week, which is one of the busiest travel times of the year. My travel partner and I used almost exclusively public…

>I just got back from Japan. I did not notice a difference in performance between tapping with a Blink credit card and tapping with an IC card. I only used the ICOCA card.

Unless things have changed, the ICOCA uses Felica as well. And old Offline Credit Card transactions used to be 200-300ms. Compared to Felica that is sub 100ms. May be offline transactions for credit card have gotten faster? Or may be not latency sensitive enough to notice the lag.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#133

Post by threeseed »

walthamstow wrote: post #56
lhl wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's about equal for utility - Japanese Suica/Pasmo cards are also usable in every single konbini, at all the stations stores, across most regional transportation and taxis, and at maybe half of Tokyo shops/restaurants (it's a default option in AirPay and other PoS systems). A lot of vending machines accept Suica, and I use it at grocery or drug stores. You can even use it at some other types of shops like Bi…

The funny thing about Japan is they have this wonderful universal IC card, but not everywhere accepts it, some accept only it, some only accept cash, some only cash or physical credit card, some only QR (PayPay), so you end up needing to carry several methods, and one of them is paper and coins!

Australia was the first country to widely support chip/pin and then tap/pay.

Even here cash is coming back into vogue as costs are pushing small businesses to evade taxes.

I was in Tokyo last week and it was similar businesses i.e. mostly smaller and in lower margin industries.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#134

Post by delfinom »

dal wrote: post #77
socalgal2 wrote: post #68

I think I must be mis-understanding something > Since there's no point in generating keys for a device which will not be used in Japan, non-Japan SKUs don't have Osaifu-Keitai functionality. AFAIK, all iPhones from all regions since like iPhone 10 (internet says iPhone 7) support Osaifu-Kaitai unless I don't understand what that means. My USA iPhones works everywhere Suika, Pasmo, Icoca, etc work. Every station, bus,…

Also my western Google pixel pro 9XL does not support it..while the Japanese version does. I guess google might be saving on the licensing or something.

If you want to root your Pixel to enable it:

https://github.com/kormax/osaifu-keitai-google-pixel

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#135

Post by hocuspocus »

delfinom wrote: post #125
aikinai wrote: post #88

The iOS and Android part was hard to follow, so I'm not sure if the article is wrong or just unclear. All iPhones since iPhone 7 support FeliCa regardless of the phone region. This is incredibly convenient for visitors to Japan. On the other hand, Android phones only support it if they are Japan-region phones.

Yes that is correct. Patents hold it back on Android. Apple just got themselves a licensing deal that apparently lets them just have it on all phones.

Note that on global Pixels it isn't hard to enable, either via root or flashing Japanese variants of the factory images.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#136

Post by charlieyu1 »

lmm wrote: post #118
makeitdouble wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another angle: mass transit is seen at best as a cost center in the west, when it's more expected to be a fully profitable business in Japan [0] Paris adopted an IC system as well and it is pretty usable, but not pushed to the extremes of the JR system because they weren't ready to invest as much, manage the money aspect and really make it a full blown business. [0] some lines and areas are definitely money pits. Tha…

Japan hugely subsidizes public transport both directly and indirectly, e.g. almost all employers will pay for employees to commute by public transport but not by car, because the government heavily incentivises them to do so. The Japanese transport providers are indeed more entrepreneurial about this kind of stuff, but I think that's more a case of Japan having high trust in government and quasi-governmental entities…

Or the Hong Kong model. Railway operators are also property developers whose main profits comes from selling homes next to important stations. (This is not necessarily a good thing)

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#137

Post by ksec »

I still remember when Apple announced their FeliCa support. And FeliCa became NFC-F standard there is a potential of Apple Wallet and Apple Cash ( Before both were announced ) for world wide usage to fight against the march of QR Code.

They could have a store value card that works worldwide. Effectively bringing Octopus or Suica card to the world.

I even remember there were proposal for future version of Felica that works under 10ms. Although I cant seem to find any reference of it.

There is also a new NFC proposal ( again my google fu is not helping ) that allows multiple NFC card / tags to be read at the same time. So we can do Membership card, discount card and payment card all in one. And hopefully someday we could have electronics receipt right on our phone alongside the payment record as well. Something I wished Apple have done for the past 10 years but they still haven't gotten Apple Card or Apple Cash to work outside of US.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#138

Post by deergomoo »

chgs wrote: post #8

I haven’t noticed any delay in london with a card, phone might be 200ms slower than credit catd. I Haven’t been to japan for a decade, are they really that much faster - and does it make a difference? What happens if a card is wrong/doesn’t scan/is invalid/etc at the higher speed?

I can’t rule out that at rush hour in either country it makes a difference, because I haven’t experienced it.

But I’m with you, with an express travel card set in Apple Pay (so you can just plop your phone down on the reader without opening anything) there is a beat for it to read on the Underground barriers, but it’s basically the same length of time as it takes to do the step and a half from the reader to the gate. At a normal walking speed I don’t feel as though I need to interrupt my stride.

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#139

Post by aecsocket »

delfinom wrote: post #130
aecsocket wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here, this is my fault for not proof reading this part properly! The part about non-Japan SKUs is generally true for Android phone manufacturers, but Apple eats the cost and gives all phones Osaifi-Keitai. You do not need to root an iPhone to get this functionality, even on a non-Japan unit. I will write a correction for this section to clear up the confusion.

AFAI, many Android phones have Osaifu-Kaitai support outside of the US just sitting there. I think if there is a key generation fee, it's at setup time of a wallet and not just physical phone's existence. I rooted my US model Pixel 9 Pro on my Japan trip last year to enable it. :D Literally a boolean in a config file. https://github.com/kormax/osaifu-keitai-google-pixel (The author's write up has more theories on why…

This is an interesting find and the author's ideas make sense to me. I can't confirm them of course, this is all probably hidden behind legal documents, but I've updated the article to a link with this repo. Thanks for the link!

Re: Japan's IC cards are weird and wonderful

#140

Post by aecsocket »

aikinai wrote: post #88

The iOS and Android part was hard to follow, so I'm not sure if the article is wrong or just unclear. All iPhones since iPhone 7 support FeliCa regardless of the phone region. This is incredibly convenient for visitors to Japan. On the other hand, Android phones only support it if they are Japan-region phones.

I didn't make this clear enough in the article, sorry for the mix-up! Yes, iPhones support Osaifu-Keitai, and it's Android phones which have this problem. I've now updated the article to clarify this.
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