Yes it has a "needle". It's a plastic filament, and it's inserted inside a metal needle that gets removed with the applicator.
It was actually entirely "painless" to apply. I braced myself, hit the button, and went "did it happen?" and saw something stuck in my arm. 100% couldn't tell. THAT SAID, I spent the next 3 days going "ughhhhhhh my arm hurts" so I must've hit something. I squished the flesh around a bit, and massaged my arm and it stopped after a few days. I can't tell if I got unlucky, or if this is just what "new thing in my arm" feels like.
Yes and it's fairly intimidating (but I am a bit squeemish), the "painless" they refer to is that the applicator will have a lot of surface area which pretty much drowns out the pain of the needle prick.
It was painless, but painless does not mean no needle.
It was actually entirely "painless" to apply. I braced myself, hit the button, and went "did it happen?" and saw something stuck in my arm. 100% couldn't tell. THAT SAID, I spent the next 3 days going "ughhhhhhh my arm hurts" so I must've hit something. I squished the flesh around a bit, and massaged my arm and it stopped after a few days. I can't tell if I got unlucky, or if this is just what "new thing in my arm" feels like.