Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by nicoburns 2951 days ago
Anecdotally, I've only seen a few people using apple pay in the UK. Everyone now has contactless card (which you just tap on the machine to pay almost instantly), which as very popular.

A lot of places seem to support apple pay, but it's much less convenient than contactless (obviously some people disagree).

3 comments

Another advantage is that you don't add yet another entity knowing what you do with your life in the mix. The bank already has the information, and the shop. I don't really want apple/google/whatever to append to the stock pile of stuff they know about me: my consumption habits, the money I got and the places I visit despite the fact my geoloc is off.

The massive centralization of our life is a huge problem.

Like we said "don't give everything to facebook" 10 years ago and people only wake up now, I wish people realized it's not about a particular brand. It's a general advice.

The worst part is that the power you give to them is invisible, so it doesn't seem that much. It feels harmless. But the potential for controlling ones life is huge.

I’m one of those that disagree :)

I prefer Apple Pay over contactless as you can often go over the £30 limit of contactless. Eg I’ve spent £80+ at Waitrose and paid using Apple Pay. Plus it is more secure- you must authenticate to use it- and that added security doesn’t take long at all (under 1 second to Touch ID). I’ve got 3 cards (two debit, one credit) linked to Apple Pay.

I only have one contactless card, which is just to replace my Oyster card for tube/public transport travel, and that’s only because it’s quicker to pay with when going through the gates. I explicitly called the banks and told them to send me non-contactless versions of all my other cards.

Oh, and Apple Pay doesn’t suffer from card clash. Which is one of the other reasons why I only have one contactless card in my wallet.

Huh? Apple Pay uses the exact same NFC tech as contactless.
Why would I want to pull my phone, unlock it, if I can just tap my card instead?
The beauty of China-style massive adoption of mobile payments is leaving the house without taking your cards or wallet or cash with you.

So kind of agreeing with you - Apple Pay is great because then I don’t need to take my card (whereas I’ll always take my phone) and it has added security of Face Recognition.

However, the poor adoption (ie, all those places that don’t have contactless, don’t take cards, money transfers to friends, parking meters....). Contactless vs ApplePay is 50:50.

If you have more than one contactless card, you’ll need to remove it from your wallet to pay. That’s slower (at least for me) than pulling out my phone, thumb primed on Touch ID so it’s already authenticated before I tap.

Plus, if my card is stolen, it can’t be abused on multiple cheap contactless purchases. Sure the bank will refund, but it’s still a pain of a process to go through, especially if the bank pushes back at all.