The contactless payment method transforms iPhones and Apple Watches into cardless way to pay for low-cost items with little more than a tap. No problem. And don’t forget, if you live in London, you can now even use your iPhone to hop on the Tube or train and get to work. This could lead to people riding for free claiming that they’ve paid using one of the new payments systems or, if you run out of battery, a penalty fare.
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If you touch in on your iPhone, touch out on your iPhone, if you touch in on your Apple Watch, touch out on your Apple Watch.
Oh, and one last thing: you’ll need a debit or a credit card from a bank that supports Apple Pay.
Apple Pay also has the UK-only benefit of being able to use it on all of London’s TfL services.
The usage is indicated by analysis of thousands of social media mentions of Apple Pay and the different places accepting it, which found that London’s transport was by far the most popular place to use it, followed by the supermarket, then Pret and Waitrose.
“Apple Pay is positioned as being the fastest and easiest way to pay [but] if you think there’s a 50 per cent chance it could fail, you’ll just reach for your credit card instead.”
After being released in the States last October, Apple Pay has finally arrived in the UK. You will also need to put in the security code of the card. In fact, despite being considerably smaller, the UK launch of Apple Pay has 30,000 more stores than the US, which promised “more than 220,000”.
For TfL, this fits with some other comment about the shortcomings of using Apple Pay on the transport system, including being charged full fare if a device battery expires during a journey.
At present, Apple Pay devices can only cap out at the same price as a weekly travelcard (this will happen automatically).
This is accessed in the Settings menu, under General and Software Update. The consumer insights director of that firm, Imran Choudhary, explained that “The market wasn’t making enough noise but now Apple is on board that will all change”, adding that “They are the ones to tie it all together and with all the eligible devices it is only a matter of time before everyone gets on board”.
This should go without saying, but make sure your Apple Pay device has power for your entire journey. Click “Add Credit or Debit Card”.
This is the same mechanism used for contactless cards. After all, we’ve had contactless payment cards for years. Users need to select the payment card they would like to use and authenticate with a fingerprint – all of which takes valuable seconds.
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It can additionally be used to pay for items and services in apps on the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3.
