I think I've only seen one person pay with Apple Pay in the last four years. It was at Walgreens.
Maybe I'm missing something obvious but please do tell me HN readers do you use Apple Pay or Android pay at all ? and if you do use it how often every month?
America is far behind the curve compared to the rest of the world. About the only place I use Apple Pay in the US is at Starbucks. But in the UK, I literally use it for everything. Restaurants, the London tube, taxis, pubs (to pay for a round of drinks!). It's incredibly useful, and it amazes me that America is taking so long to adopt it.
Even more amazing is that the US even changed payment systems to a chip-based system just a couple of years ago, but apparently didn't mandate that everyone adopts contactless payment when updating their hardware. Foolish.
Ha, you should visit Germany. Apple Pay doesn't even exist here [0]. Contactless payments with debit cards are slowly becoming a thing, but that seems to be the height of it.
Well, that is more like a German thing then a Apple Pay/Google Pay thing. Credit cards are frowned upon in Germany, so the acceptance is pretty low compared to other places in the world. Most chains nowadays support card payments but it is still not accepted anywhere. And even stores that accept cards, they will most likely only accept “EC cards”. EC cards are German debit cards that only work in Germany (though some banks offer dual card which use the EV system in Germany and maestro aboard). They have very low fees compared to credit cards though (I believe it is only 15cents per Guaranteed transaction but their pricing model is very confusing).
Credit cards are accepted prettily reliable in supermarkets such as Rewe and Aldi but even other big (and more expensive chains) such as Edeka often only accept EC cards, which is pretty frustrating. EC cards are accepted at more places but you can still find many restaurants that don’t accept any cards at all and many local stores will laugh at you when you try to use anything but cash. If you find a place that takes them, chances are they have some restrictions such as that cards are only accpected for purchases over a certain amount (amount being 10€ or 20€). Most taxis don’t accept them either and those that do charge a 3€ fee.
Whenever I’m with my family and they see me buy a coke or anything under 10€ using my credit card they feel somewhat ashamed because they are not sure why I would do that. Most of them take a credit card quite literally: you only use it when you want to buy something you cannot afford and have to take a credit for that. Now when they see my checking out, they are often surprised how quick the process is (it often takes only a second from them activating they terminal until my card is accept but some stores use slow devices which can take up to 5 seconds).
The reason why we don’t have Apple Pay at all is because we don’t accept cards. And when we accept credit cards, chances are they are also contactless. The only place that didn’t have them are my gas station and the pet store (though the pet store upgraded recently). This means, if you are a foreigner and you find a place that takes a credit card, you can use Apple Pay but the store clerk might be confused and call their manager (they once did that to me when I used contact less payments because they did not know you could use your card like that and also I did not enter my pin and the receipt had no sign here line. They still made my sign the receipt though).
Yeah, you're right. They mostly are a thing now, at least in bigger stores (as in chains). But I do have a feeling Germany is one of the last countries where there's loads of stores where cash is the only accepted option.
Is Apple Pay compatible with those "contactless" debit cards they have in London/UK?
What I mean is, if in the UK I go to a Boots and I ask to pay contactless, can I use apple pay? thanks
You can't "mandate" stuff like that in the US like you mandate everything in the EU. Chip readers at least had a security prerogative and most places still don't have that enabled because it's slow and doesn't work half the time.
I'm in the USA. At first I loved it, and used it often, but the main problem for me was that it's buggy as hell. 80% of the time it works, 20% of the time the merchant's terminal freaks out and I have to whip out my card anyway, so it wastes time and the people behind me in line wonder why I am trying to do some fancy thing with my phone rather than just use the card that works. After that happened about a dozen times I just stopped using it.
As a Canadian with a NFC credit card, I was blown away at how rare they are in the US. It's funny because the devices used by most stores support them, but the clerks are always blown away when I use it.
That being said, now that I live here with a non-NFC credit card, I use Android Pay for most my payments. Tapping is far easier than swipe + sign.
Yeah, some US companies actually trialed NFC and Chip+PIN years ago on some of the higher end cards (my friend had one of these, but I can't for the life of me remember what card it was. I think it was issued by Wells Fargo or Chase) but reverted back to the "standard" Chip+Signature when all other banks were deciding on this platform.
I saw a clerk's mind blow when my parents used their Canadian cards to tap to pay. It's sad that it's such a stretch to see it happening because it shows how incredibly far off the US is in terms of payment technologies. I miss having NFC on all my cards. :(
I believe there's a price limit on it, it's mostly for small transactions. Also, pre-chip cards only need a signature, which is easily faked. Most bank insure your card.
I use it every day on the London Underground. Wave my phone near the barrier and it opens.
I used it most days on holiday in Italy, whether paying for groceries or at restaurants.
There are only two things which stop me using it more often - there's a limit of £30(?) for contactless transactions, and one of my credit cards isn't supported.
It’s a little unclear, but I seem to remember reading places that accept “Apple Pay” rather than just general NFC are supposed to be exempt from the limit (different back ends), but it’s super-unclear when you can do this so always easier to assume you can’t than look like an idiot.
Well, except that quite a few shops with Apple Pay specifically, offer essentially unlimited. I bought a couple of hundred quids worth of food at Waitrose using my phone when I;d left my wallet at home
I'm in Australia and don't carry a wallet around anymore.
Apple Pay has my VISA & Amex in it. I live in Sydney and I would say 95% of merchants who accept credit card have terminals which support contact-less payments. I have found this to be such a great implementation of technology.
My VISA card was ripped off when buying something online (not using Apple Pay) and my bank was able to cancel that card and push a new card to my phone pretty much within minutes. My Apple Pay experience had effectively zero downtime while I waited a few days for a new CC to be mailed to me.
If I see the contactless payment logo I'll usually reach for my phone instead of my credit card because chip readers are agonizingly slow.
Android users: did you know you can add shortcuts to specific cards to your home screen? Pretty neat even though I tend to use my default card for the vast majority of POS purchases.
None of my credit cards do at the moment. I've had 1 or 2 in the past but the issuer replaced them with non-contactless cards (I think Chase Slate even claimed removing contactless was for security reasons)
I use Apple Pay quite a bit in NYC! From my experience, most contactless NFC readers at payment terminals accept it just fine, but maybe I've been lucky. I even use it in cabs!
US here - I use it all the time now that chip readers are widespread. Apple Pay is drastically faster than chip readers, especially when you're wearing an apple watch already.
[I'm an Apple engineer, but not working in, or speaking for, that department]
Apple Pay is great when it works, and it's my default method of payment. I rarely use it on the phone, but I love using it on the Apple Watch. It's rare enough that I still get double takes from vendors all around the world.
In the US, lots of credit cards are compatible with Apple pay, but contactless POS are still rare, and occasionally they get disabled (IIRC Walgreens disabled theirs for a while).
In Europe, the problem is the opposite: Contactless POS are ubiquitous, but in many countries, only niche CC providers support Apple pay. This is not too dissimilar from carrier support in the early years of iPhone, though, and I can see the situation improving over time.
All of my cards were contactless in 2015, I'd been doing contactless payments for 5+ years (in the few places it was possible). But then the greedy, inept, and cheap American card issuers ripped out RFID in favor of only contact EMV chip, instead of going with dual chipped cards like pretty much the rest of Europe.
And as merchants had to pay their own way to comply with the new chip requirements, they too mostly went the cheap route, which was to buy POS systems that support chip, not chip and RFID.
The reason we have contact only cards, is issuers. The reason we have chip and sign, is issuers. They want the American consumer to have as many cards as possible, and different PINs for each card discourages having a wallet of 10 cards.
I use Apple Pay regularly (multiple times per month) at Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Starbucks and Coffee Bean. On more rare occasions when I do end up shopping for cloths in person, I've used it at department stores.
It replaced my credit card wherever NFC is enabled (so basically everywhere except that one noodle place). So 11 times over the last week. I'm based in Oz though, so we seem to be ahead of the US with payments.
I use Apple Pay regularly because getting my phone + doing Touch ID is faster than getting a card out of my wallet, and I tend to use it at most stores that accept it (which is usually just larger chains, I think).
I always try it because it works really well when you're somewhere it's supported but I still feel like I'm half reaching for my wallet every time I use it, just in case it fails.
My local grocery store (3min walk from my house) supports it, most coffee shops and drug stores and the like do as well. Hell, I don't even carry my wallet most days.
I got some odd looks using it in Canada and NZ but that was when apple pay was newer; I think it was about using my phone, not about contactless.
I use Apple pay 3-4 times a week. Here in Canada we have contactless payments at most pay machines. The retailer doesn't need anything special for Apple Pay.
i no longer carry a wallet in Australia. everywhere i go, everyone accepts apple pay (or android pay or whatever its called now) - from supermarkets to small coffee merchants to thrift stores to even the local markets on a weekend. Having also lived in america for 2 years also, there is a big disparity between american and the rest of the world.
I wind up using Android Pay about once a month, but primarily because it also holds loyalty cards. I only EVER use Android pay for payment when there's also a loyalty card relevant, because otherwise I forget. I forget because so few places I shop seem to even take NFC payments, and half the devices that say they do don't work.
In Canada, a lot of credit and debit cards are NFC-enabled. I discovered that the NFC-enabled payment terminals will take a payment via Apple Pay just as though it was a plastic card.
I've only seen two businesses actually advertise that they take Apple Pay, but I've used it at countless businesses that don't advertise it.
I've used it a couple times to buy something from a website on my phone. That makes it handy because I don't need to fill in CC info and whatnot. But yeah I rarely use it except in that case, Walgreens, or maybe one or two other stores.
Plus bigger stores like Target still don't support it.
I pay for pretty much everything with Apple Pay. All of the supermarkets here in NJ accept Apple Pay. The convenience of using my watch to pay is great - and much faster than the chip card readers.
In London, I was able to use Apple Pay to pay for all of my subway and bus rides directly.
In California. Most of my POS transactions use Apple Pay. It's much faster than the chip. Of the businesses I visit routinely, I only pull out my wallet at restaurants, Target, and one of three local grocers.
Why would you use contactless payment when phone manufacturers actively withhold NFC functionality from their phones costing below $400 (in the US)? If they wanted wide adoption they wouldn't do that.
I use Apple Pay every chance I get. I'm not a big shopper, but I use it probably 3 to 4 times a month. I use it because it's faster than chip and signature, and more secure.
I'm in the US, and I use Apple Pay everywhere that I can, which now feels like the majority of places I shop. Still, some major chains still refuse to support it; CVS comes to mind.
When I'm in town (Cupertino area,) I use Apple Pay almost everywhere. I love it. France just recently got it, so I'm looking forward to being able to use it more.
I can pay for the bus here in Portland with it. That's pretty nice. Outside of that and McDonald's though, I haven't seen many places that support NFC.
Really? I'm in a reasonably rural area but pretty much every PoS I hit now accepts Apple pay. Probable 80-90% at least? It's not always obvious the PoS supports it by looking at it
I have a credit card with an NFC chip built in. I enjoy swiping my wallet over the payment terminal and mystifying people at stores with what I just did.
