[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I9MbIrlEUw]
After launching its new mobile wallet service Apple Pay during yesterday’s keynote, the company gave demos afterwards, TechCrunch sharing a video.
The card you have registered with your Apple ID becomes your default card, but you can add others by using the camera on the iPhone 6 to identify it. The iPhone requests permission from your bank, and the card is then added to Passbook …
Using your default card at a compatible contactless payment terminal is as simple as holding out your iPhone. Once it is within range of the terminal, it automatically opens Passbook and displays your default card. Check the amount, place your finger on the Touch ID sensor and you’ve paid.
Want to use a different card? Simply scroll through the stored cards to select the one you want.
It appears that Apple Pay overcomes the two key drawbacks of existing contactless cards: security and transaction limits.
Contactless cards have been commonplace in the UK for some time now, and you use them in much the same way as shown in the demo: just touch the card to the terminal. But as there is no form of authentication beyond checking that the card isn’t listed as stolen, a thief could make a number of transactions before a flurry of purchases raises a fraud flag.
To counter this, card terminals place a transaction limit on contactless card payments, typically equivalent to $35-50. Apple Pay solves the first problem, by requiring fingerprint authentication, and this suggests that it may also solve the second, as there would no longer be a need for transaction limits.
The Apple Watch offers a route to using Apple Pay for owners of the iPhone 5/s/c. This may mean transaction limits apply to purchases made with the device, but it’s also been suggested that it may be possible to authenticate the watch each morning, that authentication remaining valid for so long as the watch is in contact with your wrist.
Thanks, Tim Jr
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I remember one of your articles around this time last year when the iPhone 5S was unveiled I expressed disappointment at the lack of application of Touch ID and this is precisely one of the applications I described a vision of. I also remember you replying to me saying payments were likely coming with iOS 8 :P It’s nice to see it come into play.
Still wonder how they´re gonna handle this an the watch. I doesn´t make any sense to connect the watch with the terminal and pull out your phone afterwards to verify by TouchID, so these four sensors on the back of the watch seem to be able to do more then just measure your heart rate…
As I wrote, my guess is that using an Apple Watch to pay gets you the same transaction limits as contactless cards.
Sorry, missed that last paragraph
I read on one of the blogs that it’s via a pincode and has to be entered each time the sensors lose contact with your skin. So if you get up in the morning, put it on, go to the mall – when you grab a coffee, you’ll have to authenticate (not sure if it’s on the watch or the phone) but then (presuming you don’t take off the watch), when you pick up a case at the Apple store, you just wave the watch and pay without the pincode.
Check this tweet out:
https://twitter.com/reneritchie/status/509437661632028672
@Ben ..
I think they will not have limits.. From what I understand from Rene Richie was able to pull from an Apple Rep, the Apple Watch uses a PIN to authenticate the user and it will stay authenticated as long as the watch stays in contact with the skin on their wrist.
It’s a cool idea. Unless thieves start chopping off hands below the wrist! EEK!
That would be cool
You joke, but I am wondering if California politicians have already started crafting legislation to force all smartwatch manufacturers to incorporate anti-theft features, or if they will wait until the Apple Watch is released.
Hopefully those CA lunatics will be soon replaced by less sociopathic individuals that aren’t in the business of forcing through legislation of the ilk: “We want the ability to remotely disable all smartphones, because you can trust us! The people that lie, cheat, steal, and kill to reach positions of authority! All in the name of anti-theft!”
YEA RIGHT. Next it will be, missed your credit card payment? Oh sorry your smartphone is disabled.
Is this the 4,7 or 5,5 inch modell shown in the video?
4.7″ iPhone in a woman’s hand.
She seems to have no issue using it one-handed.
I sent this video to my wife….the same wife that when asked if she wanted an iPhone 6 or my iPhone 5s responded, “Can’t I just keep the one I have?” (an iPhone 5).
:(
PMZanetti, time to upgrade to a new wife!
Amazon’s patented one-click ordering system has finally been improved upon. Apple has been licensing the patent for use on its online store and in iTunes.
But now Apple has a superior one-touch system that is more secure and extends into the physical world. Amazons system is limited to primarily their own store front a a few licensees. Apples system looks as if it will be the gold standard for mobile payments.
Hopefully this can get implemented at “sit down” restaurants as well. Would be much improved over handing your CC to a waiter and them walking away with it for 5 minutes before returning. Just not sure how it would be done in this style setting.
Mobile contactless terminals are commonplace in the UK
Cool, that would be great!
Just like at REI
Hmm….wouldn’t be considered “classy” to have the pay terminal at the table. Unless of course, instead of just bringing you your “check” they bring you a wireless payment terminal built in to a check booklet. THAT might satisfy the moguls.
Yeah a terminal at the table would seem rather cheap like you were eating at a dive dinner. Wireless could maintain some class though. Be interesting to see how restaurants approach this.
Like I said, they all have one thing in common and thats the little booklet/jacket that they bring the check in. Someone needs to make one that has a contactless terminal built in, so that you pay right there, and nothing leaves your pocket or the table or disappears into the back room.
Again, this isn’t an issue. You can go to a Michelin-starred restaurant in the UK and they’ll bring a mobile terminal to your table. It would be viewed with great suspicion here now if a waiter walked off with your card.
It may not be an issue to you but if you care about the user experience, you want to make that mobile payment terminal disappear.
The best way to do this would be to make it disappear into the binder that holds your bill.
As Ben said, that’s been the case in many countries abroad for quite a long time. I remember paying my check tableside with a cardswipe reader at a restaurant in Edinburgh all the way back in 2007.
This is just like the NFC I’ve been using on my S5 for the last four months or so.
FINALLY It has a cooler name. Oh wait ….
No actually it isn’t, but we know by now not to expect you to be able to read far enough to understand that.
Yeah, this is WAY different than NFC. The vendor doesn’t get your name, card number, or address with Apple Pay. I know you’re anti-Apple, but you should really look into Apple Pay so you can understand how it works and how it’s nothing like “regular” NFC.
I have a question. Android users say their payment system works better than Apple Pay, so do all Android smartphone do payments pretty much the same way as Apple’s payment model. The Android users say they’ve been using their smartphones to pay for things for many years because they’ve had NFC chips for many years. If that’s the case, then Apple must be very far behind Android. Supposedly, Google Wallet is the one to beat. Does Apple really have any advantage over Google and Android devices? Google was rumored to be saying that Apple’s mobile payment implementation isn’t very good and that it will be a massive failure especially because Apple has almost no smartphone market share.
Apple Pay uses NFC to make contactless payments, but the way it’s implemented is WAY different. With Apple Pay, the vendor/POS doesn’t receive any of your personal information, to include your name, address, credit card number, expiration date, nothing. It’s a private transaction.
It can also be used to pay for online transactions with participating vendors. No need to input all your info when you check out, including shipping address, just use TouchID to verify your transaction and you’re good to go.
NFC technology is limited in merchant acceptance. Some of the comments talk about restaurants … the main issue here is most of the places do not accept NFC technology. Currently in the U.S., only ~3% of merchants accept NFC.
In the UK, NFC payment went from nothing to maybe half the payment terminals around in the space of a year. The same thing will happen in the USA.