Apple Pay, which was unveiled to the world at the launch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, has officially launched in the U.S. today alongside iOS 8.1. Experiences with the service on its first day have been mixed, and notably, Eddy Cue this morning to acknowledged that in saying that Apple still has “a lot of work to do.” Some banks are requiring verification processes which are taking time, and some widespread credit card companies, like Discover, aren’t yet supported at all. But some experiences with Apple Pay have been seamless and it seems that, so far, the service is working as expected despite its slow roll-out.
Customers can use Apple pay at a wide variety of launch partners, including Aeropostale, BJ’s Wholesale Club, Foot Locker, Office Depot, Urban Outfitters, Apple’s own retail stores and many others. If you want to get your device set up to use the service, be sure to check out our guide to getting started with Apple Pay, and be sure to let us know what your experience has been so far. As for the rest of the internet, with the exception of some locations having employees who are simply uneducated about the service, it appears as if public opinion is fairly positive.
Piper Jaffray Apple analyst Gene Munster tested it out at a few locations and had this to say:
We tested Apple Pay at McDonald’s, Whole Foods, and Walgreens and were able to successfully compete our transaction at each location. We note that the McDonald’s and Whole Foods employees were aware of Apple Pay, but the Walgreens employee that helped us was not. We believe that stores depending on employee education at the local level might have varied experience across stores, but we expect participating store employees to all be up to speed after having Apple Pay for a month or two.
Walgreens uploaded a video showing off a demo of the service in one of its stores:
One experience at McDonalds got caught on video:
Another McDonalds experience was documented, in which one customer had an awkward encounter at the drive through:
Gizmodo gave the service what they called a “slightly rocky spin”:
Deciding to try our luck at Subway, we were met with a few “ums” and some confused looks when we asked about contactless payment. The store had just received the hardware that day, it seemed, and they were still getting the hang of things. After some discussion and deep study of the machine’s new instructions, the farthest we were able to get was bringing up a screen with a QR code—which is to say, not very far at all.
TechCrunch seems to have had a pretty good experience at Walgreens:
Holding my thumb to Touch ID and my phone to the payment terminal, it took about a second and a half to register at Walgreens and the same amount of time at McDonald’s. Don’t expect it to change the entire experience however: you still have to sign for the amount shown at the drug store and get a receipt to show to the cashier when picking up your order at a fast good joint.
Harry McCracken of Fast Company is going to try to use the service as his sole payment method for a week:
So in theory, I should be able to do this without major headaches or adjustments to my daily habits. We’ll see. I do reserve the right to let my wife pay for things if she happens to be around. And if the whole experiment is a fiasco, I will sheepishly terminate it before its scheduled conclusion next Sunday.
Reactions from Twitter users have been generally positive, but as I’ve experienced myself, Wells Fargo verification seems to be delayed:
Okay, just used #ApplePay. Simple. Tapped my #iPhone6Plus on the reader, scanned my thumb, done. Got an alert on my phone about my purchase.
— Brett Larson (@brettlarson) October 20, 2014
so I can’t verify my @WellsFargo cards with #applepay through the verify app. So Frustrating!
— Will "AKay" Lassalle (@wlassalle) October 20, 2014
https://twitter.com/supertino/status/524294399501402114
Just used Apple Pay! It's so cool, and easy to use! #ApplePay #Apple
— Wayne Gross Jr. (@waynegrossjr) October 20, 2014
The service is already inspiring some Vines, too:
Here’s the Verge’s initial run thru
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Looking like these retailers supporting Pay haven’t fully trained their staff yet… That girl at McD’s looked utterly perplexed at what the guy was trying to do at first, then didn’t know she had to do something at the till to make it work.
Probably going to see a lot of this over the coming months until employees get up to speed, but a little PO’ed that they didn’t yet, as they’ve had time to prepare before the launch…
Except it doesn’t work with the Chase issued, Amazon Visa, one of the most commonly used cards amongst the tech set. Talk about DUMB!
Except that the guy in the video above was using a chase freedom issued card so it must work.
It may have more to do with Amazon than chase. I would think.
It does not work. Neither does Barclay’s, which provides Apple’s own VISA card.
I have to admit as soon as I installed iOS 8.1 and setup Apple Pay, I went straight to my neighborhood Walgreens. Luckily I was not the only one there for the purpose of using Apple Pay. The process was easy and awesome! I can’t wait until more retailers go live. I expect Walgreens to report a jump in small dollar sales today. I bought a Red Bull & a pack of gum.
While I LOVE Apple Pay, I think Apple still has a HUGE problem with iOS and it’s called “Maps”. Maps is still abysmal. I would really love to switch to Apple Maps especially now that OS X and iOS work so closely together, but until Apple fixes maps I’m stuck on Google Maps.
Where do you live? I have notice huge improvements over the past 6 months with Apple Maps. Just curious where Apple is falling down.
Citibank is having major issues activating Apple Pay for their credit cards. The reps give you a reference number and a callback phone number and tell you to call back after 6 hours. They warned me before attempting to activate that they likely would not be able to.
I had no problem activating my main Citi card (Premier) immediately (yesterday). However, my Citi affinity card (Sears) would not activate.
None of my cards work and that is a bummer. I have a Capital One that I think should work. An AMEX prepaid Serve card doesn’t after reading the fine print on Apple’s page. And of course, my MasterCard from my bank must just not be onboard yet. So much for looking forward to Apple Pay.
I activated my Capitol One card
What did you do to activate it?
Since I’ve been stuck at work all day i decided to give it a try on one of the Vending Machines that have contactless payments capabilities. It work awesome and instantly, got myself a Gatorade!
I have a feeling more people will have used Apple Pay in the next 24 hours than the combined number of people who’ve used NFC payments on Android in the last 2 years lol. Apple has a knack of driving adoption of things that others were “first” with, but not necessarily best at.
It worked for me at the vending machine at my work
Wow! I had no idea vending machines can use Apple Pay. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a vending machine that didn’t take regular cash since I don’t get around much.
It worked for me like a charm at the three places Ive tried it.
Lol that walgreens video
Haven’t tried NFC payment yet with any retailer; but was able to load AMEX Platinum – Delta Skymiles card, Bank of America Debit/VISA card. Cannot upload AMEX Platinum – Bloomingdales card however.
Early adoption has its drawbacks and always will; everyone should expect this until other retailers accept the new payment method and train their staff. At the end of the day it’ll be a good thing.
I was excited to give apple pay a whirl while at Whole Foods today. The cashier completed scanning my purchases and I held my phone to the payment processor, the charge showed up, thumb scan worked, my phone showed the payment as processed, give me paid chime, and flashed the word “Done”. But… no amount paid displayed on my screen and the cashier asked me to try it again. I did, and had the same result! At which point I said “should I pull my wallet out, slide out my Amex card and physically swipe it through the processor, that time it worked. Uggh… a big strike out for my apple pay today!
Curious if the retailer has to “turn on” the NFC during the transaction to make Apple Pay work. I’m assuming they do based on experiences using NFC built into my Chase card. Wondering why they don’t just leave NFC on… maybe liability in case you “accidentally” hold your wallet up to the reader?
NO sure about other retailers, but at Mcdonalds, the cashier has to hit the “Credit” key on the POS terminal to activate the card reader/NFC terminal. Once the cashier hits the “Credit” button, the card reader/nfc terminal then looks for the card/phone.
NFC is on when the terminal is ready to accept payment. so once the sale has been rung up on the till.
Does anyone know when Apple Pay for Keybank will be available. Any guesstimates.
Used Apple Pay at my local Panera store today. Like one of the Twitter streams above, the Panera employee thought that the Apple Pay terminal didn’t work yet, BUT it did work ok…. The one interesting thing is that NO DETAIL INFO was captured on my iPhone from the transaction. It was from a Wells Fargo debit card that had been entered and verified. Hummm…
I went to Walgreens today to buy my razor cartridges and pull out my iPhone and boom done, even easier than pulling out cash, I was very impressed of how fast this worked, my wife said Waaao that’s it!
yeah… worked flawlessly @Walgreens and Wholefoods…. sadly the processing bank account charges show up twice for both transactions in my account balance… wondering if the double charges disappear… haven’t read this one anywhere, yet, anyone else experiencing the problem ? (BoA, Visa Debit)
this is incredibly clunky compared to regular pay pass. Certainly more secure….but its far from being something that has revolutionized anything. Its just another one of the same sort of thing weve been using for years.
Millions of credit cards are stolen yearly from shops due to outdated card design. Although this problem is explicit to US, the new fact that I can authenticate contactless payments is nice (typically NFC payments do not require PIN code under £20).
Any word on when it will be available in other countries, you know like Australia where pretty much 99% of stores accept NFC payments already???
Tried it out yesterday at Meijer (a Michigan based retailer that’s located in the midwest), and it worked like a charm. Unfortunately I can’t use my primary debit card yet, as my bank is in the second wave of banks coming to Apple Pay, so I won’t be using it regularly yet, but I found it to be fast. Though with that said, I’m not sure it was any faster or more convenient than pulling out my wallet and card, as this required me to pull my phone out anyways.
It’s more secure to biometrically authenticate a one-time payment authorization than it is to pull a credit card out of your wallet in public and swipe it. IMO that’s at least a much of a benefit as speed/convenience.
Jesse, Short run I think you are right about there being little difference, however the benefit longer term is not having to carry around your CCs period. I have too many cards due to different personal / business cards and so my wallet is thick and annoying to sit on, so i can’t wait to cut back to maybe just my debit card for emergencies.
Hope it comes very soon to other countires!