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Yeah, absolutely love it. Just by virtue of breaking the £30 limit for contactless payments I now just never need my wallet. For a long time I held off upgradin

by thom 7y ago

Yeah, absolutely love it. Just by virtue of breaking the £30 limit for contactless payments I now just never need my wallet. For a long time I held off upgrading my previous iPhone, and it never really occurred to me that Apple Pay was a killer app, but it's probably the single biggest quality of life upgrade that a piece of technology has given me in 5 years or so. My only sadness is that not many websites support it - where they do, you don't have to type out endless steps in a wizard, just give a thumbprint and that's it.

gregmac 7y ago
Not sure how contactless limits are set, but I suspect it's by the merchant. In Canada most are $100, though there's a handful of places that do $200. Costco is $400. If you go over the limit, you get promted to insert your card and use a pin. Signing a signature is basically obsolete - in fact I can't remember the last time I did. Restaurants usually have a wireless terminal they bring over. It's strange how regional those types of things are though. I am always surprised traveling in the US when I'm asked to sign (even with chip or contactless, which makes zero sense).
- thom 7y ago
  I believe in the UK it's by the card issuers as a security measure (it's definitely a flat £30 for most cards). They're happy to be liable for that amount a few times until the fraud prevention measures kick in, but not more. Apple's appetite for risk is perhaps a little bigger. I don't think I've signed anything for 10+ years tbh, but the UK went pretty heavily for chip and pin early one. But honestly it's a coinflip whether I remember my pin these days.
  - oneplane 7y ago
    Apple probably requires fully authenticated bi-device on-line transactions making the risk much smaller. The EMV part requires the merchant device to be online or the process won't happen and the phone part requires user authentication; you'd have to break both at the same time to abuse it. Probably still possible, but much harder than stealing a card and using it until you hit the limit or get flagged. Probably also why EMV contactless without PIN and EMV contactless with PIN have different limits (amount of transactions and transaction amounts).
  - jackjeff 7y ago
    The contactless payment subject to the £30 limit do not use the same protocol as Apple Pay. The limit is lifted because it is a more secure protocol similar to Chip&PIN with a random per transaction CVV. By comparison payment with contactless on card is dumber. It’s essentially equivalent to paying online with your card screaming its number to whoever wants to scan it. If you use ApplePay on an older terminal, which does implement the more secure protocol, it falls back to the same protocol as used by contactless cards and is subject to the £30 limit.
patja 7y ago
Speaking as someone currently in the throes of trying to get their website setup to accept Apple Pay...it is an enormous hassle. Probably 5x the hassle of setting up PayPal and 10x the hassle of setting up Stripe. First you need to join the Apple Developer Program. Why? I'm not developing an app. To join the Apple developer program you need an Apple device that will do two factor auth. So I go buy an iPhone 6 with a cracked screen solely for this purpose. Then you need Apple to approve your DUNS number. I am one of the minority who already had one, so I didn't have to go through the whole process with Dun & Bradstreet to get one, but Apple would not accept it for several weeks until suddenly they did, with no change to the number or other company info. And then, you need to schedule a phone interview! This is the point I'm at right now, so I can't tell you how many more hurdles there are to clear. I haven't had luck yet with the Apple "click here and your phone will ring any moment with a call from us" button on their website. Phone never rings. And I haven't even got to the part where I pay $100 before accepting any payments, which Stripe and PayPal sure don't require. You have to endure a lot of friction to eliminate payment friction for your customers.
- ValentineC 7y ago
  Huh, maybe it's because I'm using off-the-shelf software, but I've managed to get Invoice Ninja's Apple Pay integration [1] working with my Stripe account, with very little hassle. [1] https://www.invoiceninja.com/payments-apple-pay/ https://www.invoiceninja.com/payments-apple-pay/

by thom 7y ago

gregmac 7y ago

Not sure how contactless limits are set, but I suspect it's by the merchant. In Canada most are $100, though there's a handful of places that do $200. Costco is $400. If you go over the limit, you get promted to insert your card and use a pin. Signing a signature is basically obsolete - in fact I can't remember the last time I did. Restaurants usually have a wireless terminal they bring over. It's strange how regional those types of things are though. I am always surprised traveling in the US when I'm asked to sign (even with chip or contactless, which makes zero sense).

thom 7y ago
I believe in the UK it's by the card issuers as a security measure (it's definitely a flat £30 for most cards). They're happy to be liable for that amount a few times until the fraud prevention measures kick in, but not more. Apple's appetite for risk is perhaps a little bigger. I don't think I've signed anything for 10+ years tbh, but the UK went pretty heavily for chip and pin early one. But honestly it's a coinflip whether I remember my pin these days.
- oneplane 7y ago
  Apple probably requires fully authenticated bi-device on-line transactions making the risk much smaller. The EMV part requires the merchant device to be online or the process won't happen and the phone part requires user authentication; you'd have to break both at the same time to abuse it. Probably still possible, but much harder than stealing a card and using it until you hit the limit or get flagged. Probably also why EMV contactless without PIN and EMV contactless with PIN have different limits (amount of transactions and transaction amounts).
- jackjeff 7y ago
  The contactless payment subject to the £30 limit do not use the same protocol as Apple Pay. The limit is lifted because it is a more secure protocol similar to Chip&PIN with a random per transaction CVV. By comparison payment with contactless on card is dumber. It’s essentially equivalent to paying online with your card screaming its number to whoever wants to scan it. If you use ApplePay on an older terminal, which does implement the more secure protocol, it falls back to the same protocol as used by contactless cards and is subject to the £30 limit.

patja 7y ago

Speaking as someone currently in the throes of trying to get their website setup to accept Apple Pay...it is an enormous hassle. Probably 5x the hassle of setting up PayPal and 10x the hassle of setting up Stripe. First you need to join the Apple Developer Program. Why? I'm not developing an app. To join the Apple developer program you need an Apple device that will do two factor auth. So I go buy an iPhone 6 with a cracked screen solely for this purpose. Then you need Apple to approve your DUNS number. I am one of the minority who already had one, so I didn't have to go through the whole process with Dun & Bradstreet to get one, but Apple would not accept it for several weeks until suddenly they did, with no change to the number or other company info. And then, you need to schedule a phone interview! This is the point I'm at right now, so I can't tell you how many more hurdles there are to clear. I haven't had luck yet with the Apple "click here and your phone will ring any moment with a call from us" button on their website. Phone never rings. And I haven't even got to the part where I pay $100 before accepting any payments, which Stripe and PayPal sure don't require. You have to endure a lot of friction to eliminate payment friction for your customers.

ValentineC 7y ago
Huh, maybe it's because I'm using off-the-shelf software, but I've managed to get Invoice Ninja's Apple Pay integration [1] working with my Stripe account, with very little hassle. [1] https://www.invoiceninja.com/payments-apple-pay/ https://www.invoiceninja.com/payments-apple-pay/