Apple introduced support for dedicated transit cards in Apple Wallet around six years ago, and since then – it’s slowly expanded. In the US, you’re able to utilize transit cards in Apple Wallet with San Francisco’s Clipper card, Washington DC’s SmarTrip card, and Los Angeles’ TAP card. Canada’s PRESTO card supports Apple Wallet as well.
In due time, New York City’s OMNY card will join in on the fun of Apple Wallet integration, per the MTA.
OMNY rollout
Over the past five years or so, New York City has been phasing out its physically-swiping MetroCard system in favor of a new tap-to-pay system, dubbed OMNY. At first, the system only supported tap-to-pay with your own debit or credit card. It also supported express transit in Apple Wallet.
However, in more recent years, they rolled out physical cards. This allows customers to reload a card up front, whether that be with cash or with a debit/credit card. This would also save you the hassle of having dozens of $2.90 transactions show up on your banking/credit card statements.
Now, the MTA is set to phase out the MetroCard fully within the next year or so. That requires having OMNY widely available and easy to use.
Transit card in Apple Wallet
In the upcoming capital program meeting (notes linked here), the MTA is going to announce major updates involving the OMNY rollout, including:
- Launch of a mobile virtual OMNY card (for normal commuters and for students) in Q4 2025
- New integration within the MTA app to manage your OMNY card
Both of these things will be available by December 2025, which is when the MTA would like for the OMNY rollout to reach “substantial completion.”
So, if things go according to plan, you’ll be able to add an OMNY card to Apple (or Google) Wallet in the coming months, just like you can in Washington, DC and San Francisco.
9to5Mac’s Take
I’m particularly excited for the rollout of OMNY in Apple Wallet, primarily because I’d love to simply preload the card every once in a while, rather than seeing a $2.90 transaction in my banking app for every single one of my subway taps.
Top comment by Ertaus
It is crazy how apple reacted to the AI lack of delivery changing the leadership but this feature and other services like transit, sports & news apps are neglected all the time and they show the lack of effort in their organization. Transit cards in wallet had been over promised and under delivered for years. They can’t ship a sports app worldwide. The news service is only available in a few counties. I would make more changes if I where in Tim Cook place.
This’ll also be huge for students, who currently have to deal with a cheaply-produced and often defective paper card to take advantage of their free subway/bus rides to school.
If you live in New York City and ride the subway, this’ll certainly be something to look forward to.
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