Apple Locks iPhone 6/6+ NFC To Apple Pay Only 336
Ronin Developer writes From the Cnet article: "At last week's Apple event, the company announced Apple Pay — a new mobile payments service that utilizes NFC technology in conjunction with its Touch ID fingerprint scanner for secure payments that can be made from the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus or Apple Watch. Apple also announced a number of retailers that would accept Apple Pay for mobile payments at launch. However, Cult of Mac reports that NFC will be locked to the Apple Pay platform, meaning the technology will not be available for other uses. An Apple spokesperson confirmed the lock down of the technology, saying developers would be restricted from utilizing its NFC chip functionality for at least a year. Apple declined to comment on whether NFC capability would remain off limits beyond that period." So, it would appear, for at least a year, that Apple doesn't want competing mobile payment options to be available on the newly released iPhone 6 and 6+. While it's understandable that they want to promote their payment scheme and achieve a critical mass for Apple Pay, it's a strategy that may very well backfire as other other mobile payment vendors gain strength on competing platforms.
Jailbreak (Score:2)
Re:Jailbreak (Score:5, Insightful)
That NFC will be made available via jailbreak, I do not doubt.
That it will happen quite that *fast*, I do doubt. Apple has gotten really good at lockdown.
Note that Lockdown != Security. Security means preventing unauthorized access. If you can't even authorize *yourself* to get access, it's either not "security" or it's not your device (or both).
If you want NFC, go with Samsung, or HTC, or Nokia, or one of the many other phone OEMs who have been including NFC hardware and software that lets you use it for years now.
Re:Jailbreak (Score:5, Insightful)
That NFC will be made available via jailbreak, I do not doubt.
That it will happen quite that *fast*, I do doubt. Apple has gotten really good at lockdown.
Note that Lockdown != Security. Security means preventing unauthorized access. If you can't even authorize *yourself* to get access, it's either not "security" or it's not your device (or both).
If you want NFC, go with Samsung, or HTC, or Nokia, or one of the many other phone OEMs who have been including NFC hardware and software that lets you use it for years now.
And I'm sure we'll all be very eager to make use of the third party mobile payment options made available for your jailbroken iPhone on Cydia, courtesy of a bunch of hackers you've never heard of before.
Re:Jailbreak (Score:5, Insightful)
Also a valid point. I do a fair bit of phone hacking, but am very cautious about what I install from whom (it helps that I can decompile apps pretty well by now). Most people aren't, and somebody is going to want to take advantage of that.
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And which banking company would release the necessary code / keys for a jb device to interface with their systems?
None, I suspect.
You MIGHT be able to use it for basic sharing - that requires no "special" code.
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Even if you jail break the phone, is Apple going to let an app in their store that relies on it? No. What legitimate "pay" vendor is going to risk Apple's ire and legal department to provide an independent app that bypasses the Apple Store?
Re:Jailbreak (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh wow, the "my corporate company brand is better than your corporate company brand" fight.
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Oh wow, the "my corporate company brand is better than your corporate company brand" fight.
Yeah, we call that "Slashdot", or more generally, "the Internet". Welcome.
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You mean, there's no such fights between Windows and Linux users? Xbox, Playstation and Wii users?
Hell, just say something like "vi is better than Emacs" and you'll have a fight between Linux users.
Apple's notion is not "versus them", it's "versus good enough".
Android is good enough.
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Apple's notion is not "versus them", it's "versus good enough".
Android is good enough.
iOS is not.
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Also, while you can get Android phones in the iPhone price and quality range, you can't get lower-end iPhones (the worst Apple will sell is what was top of the line two years ago). You can get a less expensive and still quite functional Android easily.
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Apple's not particularly interested in the transaction fees, although of course they'll take extra money if they can get it. Apple's primarily interested in moving hardware, so their primary aim is to make iDevices attractive. I don't know what the reason for keeping this proprietary is, but there is some fundamental reason why Apple thinks it will make iPhones more attractive.
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Which will be useful for the average iPhone 6 user in 1,000,000,000..., 999,999,999..., 999,999,998...
So much for mobile payments in Japan (Score:4, Insightful)
NFC technologies are already very well established here (you can wave your phone in front of a vending machine to purchase a drink!), and it's disappointing to see that iPhone users have at least a year to catch up with everybody else.
So much for *LOTS* of things (Score:2)
Interesting! Not too surprising either; Japan is often on the leading edge of technologies like that.
Of course, NFC has got other uses, too. I've seen restaurants with NFC "Tap your phone here to leave feedback about your dining experience" stickers, businesses and hotels with "tap here to call a cab" stickers, smartphone car kits which automatically launch the navigation app when you insert your phone, and all manner of other such things... in the US and Europe. They aren't widespread yet, but they exist.
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Re:So much for mobile payments in Japan (Score:5, Informative)
iPhone is extremely popular here. Apple has been popular in general in Japan for a long time, so the brand carries it's weight pretty well here. Most iPhone users just put a cover on their iPhone that they can put their NFC card into and use it that way. The NFC card company then has an iPhone app to manage how much ÃfÃÂ¥ is on the card, etc...
Re:So much for mobile payments in Japan (Score:5, Interesting)
The iPhone is popular here but I wouldn't say as popular as it used to be, or is in other countries. I remember them putting out rope barriers for the 5s launch and hardly anyone turned up at Yodobashi in Akiba. Right now interest in the iPhone 6 doesn't seem that high either. There are too many good rival phones.
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The iPhone is popular here but I wouldn't say as popular as it used to be, or is in other countries.
Actually quite the opposite - iOS marketshare is huge here, and doesn't show much sign of slowing down. Here [macrumors.com] is a handy table.
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Re:So much for mobile payments in Japan (Score:4, Informative)
More recent stats: http://bcnranking.jp/news/1408... [bcnranking.jp]
Why pick stats from one particular month instead of the latest ones?
Also note that the iPhone has few models, where as sales for other manufacturers are spread over many more different ones. According to those stats over 70% of phones sold are not iPhones, and that's despite the extremely heavy promotion.
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Because I can't read Japanese....
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Google Translate, or Bing if you are desperate.
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I wonder how many slashdotters will get this reference...
Re:So much for mobile payments in Japan (Score:5, Interesting)
put a cover on their iPhone that they can put their NFC card into and use it that way
Terminology clarification: If it's in a card, it's not NFC, it's a "contactless smart card". NFC is, specifically, a variant of the contactless smart card protocols embedded in a larger, battery-powered device. It does emulate a contactless smart card, which is how it enables payments, but it does a lot more as well. NFC devices can also act as smart card readers (note that "reader" is something of a misnomer; it's just two computers talking to one another) and they can also act as RFID tags or readers (or writers, for tags that are writable).
This broad array of capabilities, BTW, just highlights how unfortunate it is that Apple is limiting it. In Android-land, not only can you use NFC to make payments (Google Wallet, whatever the ISIS Wallet has been renamed to), but there are a lot more uses:
1. You can download one of many smart card reader apps (or write your own) and use them to read any contactless smart card you have around, including many payment cards. What you can see depends on the security protocols implemented by the card, obviously, and also depends on whether your app knows the right commands to send. If you like you can buy your own Javacards, program them, and write your own app to talk to them, to do whatever it is that you'd like to do.
2. Most of said smart card reader apps also support reading and writing RFID tags, which you can buy inexpensively. Many people have come up with uses for these, such as automatically changing phone configuration (volume, etc.) when a particular tag is scanned. My Moto X offers the ability to register an RFID tag as an unlocking device; whenever I scan one of the registered tags, my phone unlocks.
3. Ever since Jelly Bean (IIRC), Android has used NFC as a method to initiate device-to-device data transfer. On several occasions when my wife and I have been driving separate vehicles to the same location, I pull it up on Google Maps, tap my phone to hers and touch the screen, and then it's on her phone. You can transfer pictures, files, and anything else apps care to support. NFC isn't actually used for the data transfer to avoid having to hold the phones together for a long period of time, but it identifies the pair of phones that wish to do the transfer, which is then carried out through Wifi or mobile data.
... and more. Here are some more concrete examples of clever uses to which people have put Android's NFC capabilities: http://trendblog.net/creative-... [trendblog.net]
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Re:So much for mobile payments in Japan (Score:4, Informative)
Good job in exposing your ignorance. Apple Pay uses the contactless specification of the EMV standard to provide "industry-standard EMV-level security” -- essentially the existing SoftCard EMV standard. There will be no wait, Apple Pay can be used wherever Softcard is deployed.
Here. Read this [arstechnica.com] and the associated documents.
Apple Pay's adds onto the SoftCard a level of security in using the secure fingerprint reader & in not being able to see user transactions (whereas Google Wallet leaves itself in the loop so that they CAN see each transaction).
Re:So much for mobile payments in Japan (Score:5, Informative)
essentially the existing SoftCard EMV standard
SoftCard EMV standard? Wow, that's like calling HTTP the Google networking standard. EMV existed long before SoftCard (formerly called ISIS), and in fact long before Google Wallet (which predated SoftCard/ISIS by quite some time)... before NFC existed, even.
Nope they are clever (Score:5, Insightful)
The mobile payment market is completely fragmented. Apple is by far not the first company to announce a payment scheme, however it is the first that has managed to make some concrete deals with several companies and it's the first that actually has a chance at taking off.
Apple has locked it down? So what? How is that any different from the last several years where competitors have had NFC and payment support? Why is the upcoming year suddenly going to backfire them right at a time where service providers will likely be questioning whether it's a good idea to promote a system which can't be used on Apple's much advertised phone?
I'm no fan of Apple, but you can't argue that they aren't strategically clever bastards.
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I can, and I will. I already regularily use NFC both via NFC enabled bank cards and my NFC phone. Nothing apple is doing is new. They're just big enough that when they say jump more people listen; literally the only thing about applePay that stops it being an irrelevant me-to is that it is bundled with an apple device that companies know will sell by the container load. Exactly what strategic cleverness does it take to r
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literally the only thing about applePay that stops it being an irrelevant me-to is that it is bundled with an apple device that companies know will sell by the container load.
No. It's that and the fact that they only released the feature after lining up a shit-ton of major retailers and banks to support it, as well as a near frictionless method of using it (w/ iTunes and Passbook, etc) and marketing to back it all up. The NFC part of it is practically incidental to the feature as a whole.
Sadly the Google NFC implementation will eventually be seen as the irrelevant version, even though it came out 2 years before Apple's... because they totally fucked up the UI, launch, and marke
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They got people lined up to support it because they're huge. If Guatamala tried to bring in a new method for passport control do you think they'd have the same chance of it being adopted as it would if the US did? I'm not knocking Apples implementation, I just don't
Re:Nope they are clever (Score:5, Informative)
The problem with Google's implementation is that Google wants to be the payment provider. This is "better" in some ways because it means more flexible funding schemes (Apple requires Visa, MasterCard or American Expess). However, it has a major downside - Google is now a major participant in your transactiona because the retailer charges Google, and Google charges your payment provider, so now Google gets the details of your transaction, which depending on the retailer can include what item you actually bought.
The other downside is it means Google has to work with every payment system out there to get them to accept Google Wallet as a valid payment mechanism.
Apple's method means it works anywhere that accepts contactless Visa, MasterCard or American Express cards. Because Apple Pay appears to the retailer as a regular credit card so retailers have to do zero effort. Google Wallet makes it so they have to sign up with new payment providers and all that to specially take Google Wallet.
Use Apple Pay and Apple doesn't know about the transaction as it's a more standard credit card transaction that's handled between banks.
As for NFC restricted to Apple Pay? That's iOS 8. It most likely means the APIs for it are far from stable and/or Apple doesn't have a good way of handling events in NFC under the current security architecture. iOS9 can easily change it.
it's just like TouchID - last year it was only for bypassing the PIN and for iTunes purchases. In iOS8 it's allowed to be used for third party authentication in apps. You can bet iOS9 will have NFC APIs for app use.
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I have a hunch that NFC is locked down because of the secure element. Not that it's not secure. But rather that there's probably some detail about NFC chipsets where once you have it some mode, it's hard to switch in and out of it.
So say ApplePay is active, then in order to do stuff with the NFC reader for CustomApp1, you need to turn off ApplePay and then reload all the state data for CustomApp1. Then If you decide to switch to CustomApp2, then it has to unload all the state data for CustomApp2. Meanwhile,
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Sadly the Google NFC implementation will eventually be seen as the irrelevant version,
Im not clear how that would work. NFC is NFC. Apple pay / Google wallet should interoperate.
Re:Nope they are clever (Score:4, Insightful)
They don't have to interoperate, they just need to co-exist. Much like Visa and MasterCard.
Competition is a good thing.
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Right now, ISO 7813 mag-stripe cards are nice and standardized; but that only gets you as far as having the reader hardware work. Whether your card will be accepted by a given vendor is an entirely separate matter governed by some ghastly pile of contractual arrangements.
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Im not clear how that would work. NFC is NFC. Apple pay / Google wallet should interoperate.
Since they are both for _making_ payments, I'd expect them not to interoperate at all. However, both should interoperate with the same devices that are made for _accepting_ payments. At least one would hope so.
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Exactly what strategic cleverness does it take to release something that many other people already have, where your success is based on you being the biggest company in the room?
It's just enough to keep their loyal customers and make more money from them. They know most of their customers prefer new things simplified before being added. That's how Apple does it. It isn't for everyone (including me) but it works for them.
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Just bought my lunch via NFC. When I'm in London at the weekend I shall be paying for my transport via NFC. I'll be the first to admit that NFC has taken far too long to develop, that it isn't widespread enough and that Apple getting in on it is likely better for everyone as it will force progress.
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It seems like the last 3 people who posted against me all used examples of the UK. Normally we have to tell Americans that there is this thing called the rest of the world, but I don't normally expect it from the UK.
I am jealous, but the reality is a large portion of the world has contactless payment systems, yet a very small portion of the world has something compatible with a phone.
Re:Nope they are clever (Score:4, Insightful)
You regularly use NFC for payments? You must be some kind of wizard.
In the UK, an awful lot of debit and credit cards are NFC enabled, and an awful lot of stores have NFC enabled terminals. For payment, you just hold your card against the terminal. Or just hold your wallet against the terminal; the only problem with that is when you have more than one NFC card, you can't control which one will be used (but it's guaranteed that only one payment will be taken).
Actually, I can use NFC payment in my company's canteen to pay for my lunch or breakfast, that's how common it is.
The limitation is that this only goes up to £20, because anyone stealing your wallet can use your card that way until the card is cancelled.
The difference with Apple Pay is that they can't use a stolen phone, there will likely be no limit because the payment is authenticated with your finger print, and nobody ever sees your debit or credit card number which avoids fraud.
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Here in the US, I've done it once, and that was to confirm the chip in my card worked before I flew off to Europe with it. Turns out it's a chip-and-signature card, so it was as useless there as any other non-NFC card...perhaps even more useless come to think of it, because it ACTED like it was working. (From reading Slashdot, I knew this was likely the case before leaving, and I'd asked my banks about a chip-and-PIN card and got back, "Wuuhhh?", so I was prepared for this problem.)
So, for us, the Apple p
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The difference with Apple Pay is that they can't use a stolen phone
Really? Are you saying that the phone needs to be unlocked before it can be used to make a payment? Sounds incredibly inconvenient.
You have to use the TouchID sensor with your fingerprint. I don't see how that can be considered inconvenient, it takes under a second and requires basically no additional thought or movement.
Re:Nope they are clever (Score:5, Informative)
You regularly use NFC for payments? You must be some kind of wizard.
The US isn't the world.
I live in Canada and I also regularly use NFC for payments. Last night I bought groceries with NFC after I bought some diesel with NFC. At the beer store I bought beer with NFC. I bought some irrigation supplies with NFC.
Some restaurants have NFC on the little pay terminals they bring to your table.
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McDonald's has NFC enabled Interac handsets in their drive-thru. I wave my wallet at a machine for coffee a couple times a day. It's really more uncommon for me to find a vendor/retailer who *doesn't* have the NFC terminals these days. Back on topic, does this mean the new iPhones won't be able to use their NFC for anything besides payments? I quite like touching the backs of two NFC enabled android phones together to send links, contacts, photos, etc.
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Nonsense. Google already has agreements in place and terminals deployed. It works, people use it, it has taken off. I find it extremely easy and useful.
The reason Apple locked NFC down has nothing to do with payments. They could just ban any payment apps while allowing things like file/data transfers, authentication etc. They must be planning to do their own versions of those apps soon and don't want to be accused of cloning other people's work as happened in the past.
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Actually, it might be a technical limitation too. NFC apps need to run in the background and use secure hardware, and they probably don't have an API yet.
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Oh google? You mean mean the Google Wallet that isn't available in large parts of the world? They need to deploy terminals? That's a fail right there. Is this the same Google that partners with companies like Samsung who make the most popular Android handset and yet by default install a completely different payment system on their handset?
And you say fragmentation is nonsense... what next? The sky isn't blue because you once saw a nice red sunset?
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You mean mean the Google Wallet that isn't available in large parts of the world?
Well, Apple Pay isn't available anywhere in the world yet, so Google is still ahead.
They need to deploy terminals? That's a fail right there.
I agree, Apple screwed up there. Good job Google's system works with existing terminals.
Re:Nope they are clever (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh google? You mean mean the Google Wallet that isn't available in large parts of the world? They need to deploy terminals? That's a fail right there.
Apple Pay will be able to use Google Wallet / ISIS (SoftCard) terminals, and vice versa. They all use the same protocols and base technology.
Apple Pay will be successful, and Apple will garner much praise for that success from people like you who don't know the industry, but what's really going to make it successful isn't anything Apple is doing or has done, but what Visa and MasterCard did two years ago, when they announced that the liability shift will be imposed in the US in October 2015. That policy change by the card networks will give merchants huge financial incentive to get all of the necessary terminals deployed, which is why many of them are now (and have been for some time) gearing up to integrate and deploy chip-capable point-of-sale terminals.
And, if you want to look at the causes for Visa and MasterCard's decision... the biggest single factor was almost certainly the deployment of Google Wallet, which moved NFC payment in the US from a "someday" possibility to "people are using it now". At the end of the day, Apple Pay will owe most of it's success to Google.
I don't want to disparage Apple too much here, though, because they have been able to do one thing of huge significance, and it is their market position and clout with the mobile network operators (MNOs) that made it possible: They helped push through the deployment of network-level tokenization. This is a somewhat abstruse technical detail, but it's pretty important.
Right now Apple Pay, SoftPay and Google Wallet all use different approaches to how they push the transaction through the networks. Google Wallet uses a "proxy card". When you pay with Google Wallet you're actually paying with a Google-issues MasterCard debit card. That's what the merchant sees. Then Google turns around and charges whatever backing instrument you've specified (Wallet balance, bank account, debit card or credit card). This approach offers maximum flexibilty; if someone dreams up some payment mechanism and Google integrates it, you can get your payments directed to it. The downsides are that (1) it's the same credit card number every time, which means that if it gets stolen and used fraudulently (which is far harder than for a magstripe card) then Google has to take on the fraud liability; (2) the point-of-sale transaction is "card present" while Google's transaction with your payment instrument on the back end is "card not present", which means if the backing instrument is a credit card Google has to eat the difference between the front and back-end transaction fees; and (3) all transactions pass through Google, which means Google sees how much you spend through Wallet and where (which has some upsides as well; I like the payment notifications it enables and the ability to look up my payment history on any device as well as the level of control it offers me). Note that Google can't see what you bought, but obviously a lot can be inferred from location.
SoftPay (nee ISIS) uses "issuer tokenization". You can only pay with credit cards from a certain (and still fairly small -- AMEX, Chase and Wells Fargo) set of issuing banks. The banks issue "tokens" which look like credit card numbers but are only good for a single use. These are stored in the secure element on your phone and transmitted to the merchant when you pay. Security is arguably better than with Google Wallet, and there are some corner cases that are less problematic. SoftPay doesn't get involved in your transactions, although there are some indications that the app may deliver information about them to SoftPay and to your carrier, though they don't provide that information back to you as a convenient transaction log like Google does. The reason the list of cards you can use is small is because each individual issuer has to get their systems set up to support token issuance. That'
You don't need to make "deals" (Score:2)
You need an open platform that emulates a card that everyone accepts. Google Wallet works EVERYWHERE, because it just emulates a Visa card. You can use it at ANY Paypass or Paywave terminal regardless of if it says Google Wallet on it.
The only need to make "deals" is if you want to take a cut of the transaction to increase your bottom line. Google tried that, failed, and changed Wallet so that it is totally open.
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Google has the app geo-locked to US credit cards for reasons I do not understand because it actually works everywhere. I am in Canada and can use Google Wallet (with my US credit card).
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"You misspelt nowhere,"
I haven't had a single problem using Google Wallet anywhere, from TN to CA to WA. That's including stores and banks.
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Too Late for Aus (Score:4, Interesting)
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NFC has taken off in Aus in a big way.
NFC yes, mobile payments, no. The only reliable solution I have found at the moment is customers of Commonwealth Bank and Mastercard (not OR, you can't use it with another mastercard) can make NFC payments from the phone. Google Wallet is not available (not supported anyway, if you have root you can side load it). And while Samsung claims they made a deal with VISA back when the Galaxy S4 came out, I've so far failed to get any solution working on my phone without rooting and sideloading apps.
This may not w
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In Aus, the NFC terminals (Paypass/Tap&Go/etc) all use the same protocol, in the same way that all the Visa/Mastercard/Bankcard magstripes were written in a common industry format. American Express/Diners were outliers and originally required their own terminals, which is why they always had to fight an uphill battle to be accepted by smaller merchants. These days, the EFTPOS machines and banks have facilities for multiple card types, and the EMV standards encompass implementations for both NFC and Chip
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Paypass terminals will accept Apple Pay payments.
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US NFC payment system is apparently completely incompatible with the systems used in the rest of the world. The US system emulates swiping the magstrip while the European and Australian systems use some kind of PKI challenge/response.
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Australia & Europe NFC seems to be SoftCard based from what I understand. Apple Pay will be compatible with Softcard (with additions like needing the fingerprint reader to authorise sales instead of just accepting all requested payments blindly).
Look here [arstechnica.com] for more info.
NFC isn't used for just payment (Score:4, Informative)
Apple does realize that NFC isn't only used for payment systems, right? My camera can transfer pictures to a smart phone using NFC. It allows you to take high quality pictures of something and then post them straight to whatever social media you're using without going through a computer. It's a really nice feature when you're wandering around someplace photogenic and don't want to be limited to a cellphone camera.
Oh, right, Apple declared proper digital cameras "dead" in their iPhone 6 keynote. I guess that feature will never make it to iOS then.
Not to mention other types of data transfer that's possible with NFC like easily sharing contact information or things like that.
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A favourite of mine is S-Beam which makes it easy to setup a file transfer with one click. No need to go enable bluetooth, dig through settings, pair, join, then transfer the file. Just tap two Samsung Galaxy phones back to back while the image / video / file is open and tap the screen. It sets up a wifi connection (I think, though it may be bluetooth I can't remember) between the devices and sends the file across.
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Yes, S-beam is great. The phones exchange some information, set up a one-time WiFi Direct connection and transfer the file. No messing with Bluetooth pairing or any crap like that, authentication is provided by proximity.
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How many people actually bother to use those features though? Is it really worth building in OS-level support for a feature that Samsung doesn't even include in its advertisements any more and almost nobody actually has?
This is the essential philosophical difference between Android and iOS. Android says "yes, because some people might use it"; iOS says "no, because not enough people will use it".
That's not to mention the platform synergy effect that Apple wants to cultivate: you can do the same stuff as NFC
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Given how many bluetooth accessories you can buy directly from Apple, claiming that Apple "are the guys who think Bluetooth is just for syncing with your computer", is wilfully ignorant.
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I use it with a sleep monitor to read back data. Many other health devices use it. It's better than Bluetooth for things that don't need real time monitoring because it's much lower power. My sleep monitor supports the iPhone but the battery lasts a few days instead of a few weeks if you have one.
Re:NFC isn't used for just payment (Score:4, Interesting)
The speed of NFC is a few hundred kbps and is not designed for bulk data transfer. The NFC is most likely used to setup a much faster Bluetooth or Wifi transfer in a way that guarantees that the transfer has been initiated by a device in close proximity.
With longer range protocols (Wifi/Bluetooth/etc), you need other ways to pair the devices to make sure you're transferring your naked photos to the right endpoint.
With NFC, what you see is what you get, but the NFC layer is only used for connection setup.
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You're making the assumption someone wants to send their pictures to a server. Or the transferable file is a pic at all. The thing is. Apple does not have a fully functioning bluetooth, contact sharing or any wireles medium whatsover and it will not have a fully functioning NFC either. This is not new. And I am talking about fully functioning, not some "it has bluetooth cause my 200e apple bluetooth speakers work on it."
iOS NFC Only Being Used for Apple Pay (Score:5, Informative)
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I suspect that for many applications you would want your communications to be secure, and that
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That's not how NFC payments work. The transport layer is untrusted, the same as when you talk to your bank over TCP/IP. Apps couldn't steal credit card info if they wanted to, it's a one time challenge/response per transaction.
Either the API isn't ready or Apple just doesn't want to share so it can release its own apps first. Security is not an issue.
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Security of the transport is not what is at issue. The security of the entire stack needs to be evaluated for a weak link further down the chain before security could be claimed to be a non-issue.
You are right though that the API probably isn't completely ready and/or Apple want to release their apps first. Probably not a bad idea while they iron out any problems before all and sundry spew forth apps. It is much easier to deprecate an API element to fix a major security or other problem when your own implem
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Oh, so just like the Touch ID, which is getting an API in iOS 8.
It's almost like people around here are looking for any reason to bash Apple whatsoever...
I would say you have it right. (Score:2)
I would say you have it right.
Apple initially didn't open up the iPhone to Apps at all because Steve was deathly afraid of building another Newton.
Then they wanted to open them up, but there was not rational set of APIs, there was just an internal morass, because it had never been designed with the idea of hardening one app on the iPhone from interference by another app on the phone, or hardening the phones functions against a malicious app.
This is a single App on a single use, incomplete, API, one which wa
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The same basic information came out on Ars Technica the other day. But the slant on that was not that Apple was locking out 3rd party credit card processors, but rather that the NFC hardware was not being used for anything else because Apple was not ready to say the whole stack was perfect yet, from a security standpoint. This is all new code and new hardware, for Apple, and they would rather not have stories about massive credit card theft come out next week. So, this is an example of slant driving angry diatribes in the comments; if it'd been presented in a more neutral tone people would have judged Apple's actions in a more balance way.
I agree with you completely except for the notion that it is physically possible for Apple to be discussed in a balanced way by a bunch of Android using Linux geeks on Slashdot.
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The initial implementation of something that can take my money is handled by a single vendor on their hardware while they sort out everything? Sounds like a good plan to me.
WTF (Score:2, Interesting)
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Do Apple have the majority of the market in smartphones and exert an undue influence on that market? Nope, they're not even the biggest player in that market. Not at all the same as Microsoft having 95% of the desktop market and Google having over 70% of the internet search market and using their market position to keep out competitors. I don't like what Apple do but if people don't like Apple's behaviour there are half a dozen other manufacturers happy to take their money instead.
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You're massively overreacting to a biased headline. What is meant by "Apple locks NFC to Apple Pay" is simply "Apple have only provided APIs for Apple Pay so far".
This is pretty standard practice with new Apple hardware features.
Bluetooth? Originally developers couldn't access that at all, only the higher-level gaming APIs used it.
Touch ID? Again, developers couldn't access that at all to begin with, but iOS was released yesterday and that introduced an API for developers to use it.
The camera?
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No just payment! (Score:4, Informative)
If Apple proceeds with locking away the NFC API from developers they will be making a Huge mistake. NFC is not just for payments, it is a use agnostic technology, and as such can be used anywhere you need short (1-2") data communications i.e.
# Door locks / home security
# Wifi tap to secure.
# Bluetooth Pairing
# End to end encrypted messaging tap to exchange / sign public keys
# Second factor online authentication
etc etc.
On Android all these uses are available because the API is open.
Re:Considering Republicans... (Score:5, Informative)
Considering Republicans are so against NFC and haven't allowed any bank to invest in this technology
Really? [wellsfargo.com]
Re:Considering Republicans... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Well yes, but when you have several devices, the easy pairing is rather nice feature. And no, it's not 'whatever form of NFC', the payment video had a standard NFC capable reader.
"NFC offers a low-speed connection with extremely simple setup, and can be used to bootstrap more capable wireless connections." See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N... [wikipedia.org]
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Whole my life as apple customer I had to suffer from apple control freak maniacal obsession with limitations. Crippled bluetooth, jail of itunes, internal access limits, etc. NFC is already late for two years and even not usable for me(NFC tags and readers). The limitation of NFS is the final straw for me. Goodbye apple , I will buy Sony Xperia Z2 instead.
I got a Z a year and a bit ago and really regret it. If you want the Z2 cool, but make sure you want it.
On topic though my z has a nfc chip just stuck to the outside under the camera. It looks tacky and cheap. I made sure it was off when I first got it and have no cause or desire to even wonder if it would work for anything. In hindsight I should've peeled it off and flicked it in the bin before putting the protective stickers over the top. For me, the fewer things that can access my bank account or author
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How many companies make android phones? how many have to compete to make the best?
And you've hit one of the biggest problems with this system on Android. Unless you're in one of the countries which supports Google Wallet your ability to use this system will depend on which company made which deal with which financial institution and offered the fruits on which model.
Open platforms are like standards, there are so many to chose from, all similar yet incompatible and none of them really do what you want.
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Any day now... Apple will dry up and blow away. It's getting near impossible to even find an iPhone! And NOBODY is buying one and the company stock is collapsing at this moment.
I don't know who is the bigger idiot: The deluded apple fanboy or, the pathelogical apple hater.
Is this an opinion or some kind of poem?
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But they're still selling more phones than ever before. Their share of the market has dropped, but the market has got bigger
...and it is amazing how hard it is for some people to understand the difference between losing market share in a saturated market and your market share growing slower than a still expanding market. In percentages your market share may be declining even though your sales are still growing. Apple's iPhone line has been uninspiring since the iPhone 5 came out so sales growth was also less than what it might have been. I for one skipped the iPhone 5 because I felt it didn't represent a sufficient upgrade over
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What asshole would trust Apple as a wallet?
It seems you're one that wouldn't.
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