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NFC has been in android and been open and unrestricted for the last 3 years. What have they done with it?

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lol yep and after the jailbreak, when security issues come up. still blame apple

Yeah, because NFC tags have SOOOO much to do with encryption and Apple's pay system.
 
The security of the system is on NFC technology, not on Apple. Apple just put together current technologies, and I'm certain Apple will have an insurance for fraud as it has been proven that TouchID can be hacked (the NFC communication relies also on its own technology, tokenization, which is exploited by Apple to provide 'security').

At Apple's size you usually don't have insurance. For everyone, from you privately to a company of Apple's size, the rule is that you buy insurance if you can't afford to pay the possible damage. I don't think any insurance would be willing to cover damages that Apple cannot afford to pay itself.
 
Let me see if I can give you another scenario…….

Yesterday, I left my phone in my car. I had just been to the bank and had it out of my pocket, but forgot to put it back in. The problem arose when I was in line at the grocery store with a million people behind me at the register. I had to run out to my car to get it, embarrassing to say the least. My wallet would have come in handy there.
 
When I think about it actually, oyster is a quicker method than even apple pay, there is no confirmation or waiting for thumb presses. You just swipe and that's it you go through the gate! Apple couldn't use the apple pay system it would cause too much waiting around and congestion, shame. I suppose they might invent a special implementation of it for use underground with no mobile reception etc and no confirmation.

Maybe apple pay could select the card to use as a digital version of the Oyster card automatically so that it doesn't require confirmation? Hmmm it's a puzzler.

I doubt you'd need to use a finger print for anything less than £20 (just like normal cards). I'd be more worried about what would happen if the iphone battery went flat whilst on the train! How do you get out at the station!?

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I think this will be like iTunes radio - ie. non-existent for those outside the US bubble. Then again, Apple make money out of it so who knows. Thing is, it's starting to get annoying paying for tech in a device that's no use except to those in one country.

We have more NFC readers in the UK than in the US! Are you serious?
 
I think I speak for a very high percentage of the UK when I say we mostly use VISA with some MasterCard and American Express here and there too. You know, the same companies Apple has convinced it's safe enough to use in the US...

Well, that's the companies Apple has convinced it's safe enough used with Apple's hardware and Apple's code. I replied to a poster who was talking about third party applications doing the same thing as Apple Pay. These third parties would have a very hard time convincing the banks that their code is safe enough.

There may be other protections. For example, code that tries to unlock an iOS device will only work if it is signed by Apple. (That would be the code that runs when you enter your PIN to unlock the phone). For unlocking, it needs to access some decryption hardware and only code signed by Apple can do that. The same might be (probably is) the case with the security chip that handles Apple Pay.

But yes, I'd hope that Apple Pay gets implemented in the UK as quickly as possible.
 
We need a battery free solution to this. Do those NFC chips work if the main iphone battery is dead? I doubt it. I which case, we'll still need to carry around at least one card as a backup.

RFID cards don't have batteries - they are passive and activated via an external induction current (from the reader).
 
When I think about it actually, oyster is a quicker method than even apple pay, there is no confirmation or waiting for thumb presses. You just swipe and that's it you go through the gate! Apple couldn't use the apple pay system it would cause too much waiting around and congestion, shame. I suppose they might invent a special implementation of it for use underground with no mobile reception etc and no confirmation.

Maybe apple pay could select the card to use as a digital version of the Oyster card automatically so that it doesn't require confirmation? Hmmm it's a puzzler.

That would probably be possible. The difference with Apple Pay and Oyster Card is that (a) one use of Oyster Card is quite cheap (a few pound at most), and (b) I think the total you can spend with an Oyster card is low (only what the legitimate user paid in). With Apple Pay there is no limit on the spend. So it would be conceivable that for real low spend, the finger print would not be needed. On the other hand, it should be possible to activate Apple Pay with a finger print say 5 seconds before the actual use. Get in the queue, press TouchId _before_ you arrive at the reader, and if someone steals your phone just then, that's tough.
 
We have more NFC readers in the UK than in the US! Are you serious?

That's exactly my point. And why I brought up iTunes radio as well (since we still don't have it in the UK - why not?)

We are well geared for NFC in the UK, we use the same banks and credit cards (Visa, Mastercard) the new iPhone is geared for NFC payments, perfect! But can we use it? Can we ****!

We won't get this feature for years, if we even do. No doubt until well past the shelf life of the iPhone 6 because it's yet another "US" only feature in any case.

Seriously, they should make US iPhones and "Rest of the World" iPhones and give the rest of us a discount for the features we can't use.
 
There's a huge difference between TouchID and NFC: the former is merely a feature of the hardware, the latter is also part of a strategic – and potentially very lucrative – source of revenue for the company. Apple is no more interested in making NFC available to third parties than it wants a third party app store on iOS.
 
I understand the sentiment about wallets and credit cards, but... where would I put my driver's license? Will the DMV release an app that has my ID stored in a legal format?

They probably will at some point in the future. Just needs to be made so that it cannot be forged.
 
That's exactly my point. We are well geared for NFC in the UK, we use the same banks and credit cards (Visa, Mastercard) the new iPhone is geared for NFC payments, perfect! But can we use it? Can we ****. We won't get this feature for years, no doubt until well past the shelf life of the iPhone 6 because it's yet another "US" only feature.

Seriously, they should make US iPhones and "Rest of the World" iPhones and give the rest of us a discount for the features we can't use.

Why do you think it'll take years? And what do you expect to gain by using Apple Pay? It certainly WILL be years before everyone accepts this as a form of payment, so you'll be carrying around your cards with you for some time in any case.
 
Why do you think it'll take years? And what do you expect to gain by using Apple Pay? It certainly WILL be years before everyone accepts this as a form of payment, so you'll be carrying around your cards with you for some time in any case.

When did iTunes radio come out? (just as an example of Apple's "US only" features). We still don't have it in the UK, I don't see a good reason for that except lack of interest on Apple's part to offer it.

We can already buy goods with NFC in the UK, once agreements are in place what will be the hold up? Of course we'll still have to use cards for many things but still - it's a handy, secure feature that shouldn't be held up in theory.
 
Considering that it's very very easy to make naive NFC systems that are terribly insecure, I think this is a good call. I disable NFC on my android device explicitly because I don't have very good control over what gets squawked out to anyone who initiates an NFC handshake. I want to know that NFC is *only* being used for things I directly approve of, and *only* being used in an anonymised token manner. Right now, forcing everyone through the Apple Pay system, is worth it.

Look at what happened with badly designed transit passcards that leaked personal information by NFC. Look at the downsides of how it's gone on Android. An NFC app could be broadcasting anything at all in cleartext, you don't know. Google don't check, and without an NFC scanner of your own to test an average consumer doesn't know what their android device is shouting out to the world via NFC. Google of course do not care, it's up to the user or the device seller to sort that out, because Google don't really consider Android users to be customers they have a direct relationship with. This is why I have NFC turned off on my Android device. Android's NFC is a gimmick that opens me up to security and privacy exploits.

Forcing everyone through Apple Pay means that Apple can maintain a respectable relationship with their customer, the owner of the iDevice. It says "Yes we have NFC, but NFC is a risky technology, and we limit how apps can use it to protect our customers privacy". And this is exactly the kind of thing the *have* to do now that they get letters from Senate Committees when new devices are released asking about the privacy concerns. Google get the same letters, they just don't appear to care enough till someone takes them to court about something, or simply view it as the hardware device makers problem not theirs.

TLDR: I do *not* want NFC being trivialised and everything uses it to start squawking stuff because "why not, it's there!". It should be very limited to secure use. NFC is something that for security and privacy reasons, certainly belongs in the walled-garden not the wild-west.
 
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I suppose the big question is whether Apple considers transit cards and the like to be part of the Apple Pay umbrella, or whether they really are limiting themselves to credit and debit cards. They'd be mad not to want a piece of all the Oyster Card money moving through the UK, for example; between residents and tourists it's a potential goldmine.

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The Oyster card is there to stay, but soon you can just use a debit/credit card instead.
 
It's just starting to get a lot more common in the UK these last six months or so - if you've got a chip and pin card most supermarkets, pubs, shops are starting to have NFC on the card reader for transactions under £20, just touch the card on the reader and you're done. No pin needed, really easy. I see Apple Pay as an extension of that but who knows if it will ever make it to the UK.

Here in Canada too, but the limit is $100. What the hell can you buy in a supermarket for £20 ($35.78 CDN)? Even the initial limit when it was rolled out a few years ago was $50 but they realized it was pointless.
 
It launched last September with iOS7.

Thank you, I was just Googling it - so that's one year and still no sign of it, so the NFC chip in the UK iPhone 6 would seem to be redundant, possibly of use in a "6S", maybe the iPhone 7... If agreements are in place with Visa and Mastercard then they should be globally acceptable surely? I can use my debit card (Visa) anywhere in the world.

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Here in Canada too, but the limit is $100. What the hell can you buy in a supermarket for £20 ($35.78 CDN)? Even the initial limit when it was rolled out a few years ago was $50 but they realized it was pointless.

Pretty much lunch, magazines or snacks. Certainly not a weekly shop! That's why I think this would be a very good feature to have with a more secure payment system as is proposed, should it ever arrive over here. Of course the limit is because no password system is required, the iPhone touch sensor would solve that... Maybe one day. :D
 
Ha.... I remember Jailbreaking. Who wants to wait 6 months for the hackers to find a hole, then have to hold back updates etc.

High schoolers with nothing better to do but add buggy and ugly tweaks to their phones.
 
High schoolers with nothing better to do but add buggy and ugly tweaks to their phones.

Actually I used jailbreaking on my iPhone 5 purely so I could use an App where I could adjust the white balance of the screen with RGB sliders to get rid of the ugly green tint that came as standard (LG screen I expect from experience of calibrating their screens). Something again Apple could pretty easily put in the Settings menu - would get around any issues of screen inconsistency and associated complaints.
 
The security of the system is on NFC technology, not on Apple. Apple just put together current technologies, and I'm certain Apple will have an insurance for fraud as it has been proven that TouchID can be hacked (the NFC communication relies also on its own technology, tokenization, which is exploited by Apple to provide 'security').

I wasn't aware of this? There is a TouchID software hack out in the wild now? Or are you talking about the Mythbusters style dummy fingerprint workaround?
 
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