What’s next. Government telling corporation to allow side loading of apps?
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Germany Passes Law Forcing Apple to Open Up iPhone's NFC Chip to Apple Pay Rivals, But Loophole May Exist
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Joke of the day.
I find that Apple Pay on an iPhone or Apple Watch can be more convenient for a couple of reasons.
1) Many stores now have some form of membership or loyalty programme in the form of an app. If I am going to have to open the app on my smartphone to collect points anyways, may as well pay directly from the phone in the first place.
2) Apple Pay from the watch is very convenient for public transport and terminals where I don't need to fiddle with loyalty store apps, like the automated terminals at McDonalds.
3) I only have one credit card, but I imagine that being able to access multiple cards from your phone is more convenient?
It seems that the artificial limitations on consumer options are still welcome to some.
Here’s to valuing a corporation before the population. Are we at a keynote already? lol
Yes. I’m a believer in the choice of consumerism. Let the dollar speak and government keep out of it.
This x 1 million.
I am NOT going to install 57 tracking and marketing apps either to buy a stupid cup of coffee. It’s all so sleazy now I’ve been getting back into cash.
You bring up some interesting points, but I guess these rather refer to the U.S.A. market; because in Europe they are almost completely irrelevant. But let's admit that Europe also enters the loyalty e-game (which exists since a very long time, but it is still mainly based on e-mail or ID). Even so, for most everyday uses, a contactless debit card will remain the most simple and secure tool in existence.
I live in Singapore actually. I am curious to know why the points I raised are not as relevant in Europe? Is it because cash is still king there, or the terms offered by credit cards aren't as attractive?
I mean, just anecdotally, when I shop at a bookstore at a shopping centre I frequent, payment involves me first bringing up my membership card via an app (for the 10% discount), then paying via Apple Pay (bypassing the need for a signature with a credit card), and finally scanning a membership app (which applies to purchases made at any store at that shopping mall). I know, it sounds crazy.
The alternative is to take out and then put away 2 separate cards, and I still have to take out my phone anyways for the final step. I admit I was still using a debit card until recently, but found that a credit card gave way better rewards, so may as well.
A smartphone doesn't actually reduce the number of steps in the equation, but at least it helps to consolidate them all in one device and make it that bit easier to manage.
The incentive to use credit cards is probably lower in Europe. Interchange fees have been capped at 0.3% for credit cards (0.2% for debit cards). Moreover, though this might vary from country to country, credit cards are usually paid off automatically every month, meaning there is much less income from interest rates and late fees.
That means the credit card companies simply cannot afford to provide too many perks and there often is actually an annual fee the customer has to pay. That makes them significantly less popular in Europe and many people might not even have one. Cash is still king in some countries, in others debit cards and other electronic payment systems dominate.
Loyalty cards are still frequently physical and in non-chain stores, loyalty cards can 'used' by the person behind the counter looking up your name in the cash register.
Not everywhere. Card issuers in countries such as the US and Mexico still issue more non-contactless chip-only cards than contactless cards.
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There is another difference: on Android devices, including those made by Samsung, you can still use your bank’s own app to make NFC contactless payments with your phone if your bank doesn’t support Google Pay or Samsung Pay because they haven’t come to an agreement with Google or Samsung. On iOS/iPadOS devices, it’s Apple Pay or nothing. You can’t use your phone to make NFC contactless payments at all unless your bank supports Apple Pay.
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You don’t have to. One of those will suffice because any business using NFC readers accepts all forms of contactless payment.
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A wear my Apple Watch in my everyday life anyway, this allows for leaving my purse at home. Especially in the summer, when not wearing a jacket or when riding a bike, this is very conviniet.
Beside that l using Apple Pay ist more secure and allows for less tracking.
Choice isn’t necessarily synonymous with guaranteeing a great user experience. My time with Apple products has taught me that much at least.
Maybe that makes two of us? As I said above I do not believe government should be micro-regulating tech choices...it’s a slippery slope between design choices and anti-consumerism. But it’s okay we disagree.
How so? If my bank decides to launch its own app instead of remaining integrated with Apple Pay, wouldn’t I essentially be forced to not use Apple Pay? And if my credit card company does likewise?
Sure this law is not aimed at end users but it will trickle down to them for sure.
See above. If this law is passed, each bank and service will want to splinter off and become its own payment system apart from Apple Pay. End users will have no choice but to go along with it... instead of just having everything in one app that launches instantly, you might as well create a folder called “wallet” and have all the junk apps it’s inevitably gonna create crammed in there.
Features such as? When I want to tap to pay (or for transit), I want the app to be as simple and quick to launch as possible. I like the wallet app (Apple Pay) because of this. It’s just an app that allows to quickly pull out a card and tap. What more does it need?
I don’t really care for banks and transit companies trying to usurp this functionality as I don’t believe they will be able to keep it as simple and intuitive. They’ll want to add the NFC features on top of their existing apps, which automatically means bloat and slowness.
Wallet opens literally instantly. Find me a single banking app or transit app that does the same.
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I don't understand how Apple's market share can be not high enough to warrant it "dominant position" but at the same time high enough to allow Apple to "force" banks to support Apple Pay by merely making alternatives inconvenient on their devices... but this is another matter.
If banks had issues with Apple Pay, they would have boycotted it from the get go. Actually banks have little issue with Apple Pay: it brings them users and they profit from transactions still. It's merchants who have issue with it, due to the way it prevents consumer tracking etc... and as stated the EU plans to regulate merchants and prohibit them from discriminate between NFC payment options. Actually the EU wants tokenisation to be standard for all NFC transactions...
The end result would be that every merchant would have to accept Apple Pay (or whatever valid NFC payment method of choice a user might wish to use), on the other side users would be able to select whatever NFC payment method they wish on their own device.
Yes, they should be able to do so.
Yup, that is the case. If Apple decided they wanted to do that, they should be able to do so.
Even if they were on different platforms, there would be competition between them. Just as features from iOS migrate to Android and from Android to iOS.
Again, to be clear, I am not advocating that Apple ban Spotify, only that they have should the right do so. People seem to be arguing that only head to head competition on every device is real competition. What we are also seeing is competition between user experience models as well. Many people prefer the integrated iOS/macOS/tvOS/watchOS experience, complete with Apple’s curation and security choices. They should be allowed to choose that model.
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There is no question that Apple is in a "position of strength" in the mobile market. Whether this position is strong enough to fall under "dominant position" is anyone's guess since there are no hard rules.
IMHO Apple has enough of a position of strength to be able to distort competition, which means they cannot just do what they want: their position of strength means they have special responsibility not to distort competition with their conduct. It's definitely debatable though.
a) Based on your interpretation of antitrust law.
b) I don't see any harm in changing the antitrust law should its current state concur with your opinion.
The point is that the general spirit of antitrust legislation can easily be applied to the Apple Music/Spotify case. We can argue what antitrust law exactly we want, but Apple Music vs Spotify (as discussed here) is a situation where the concept of antitrust regulation can be applied.
They are in a ”position of strength” because, despite all the restrictions they place on their devices and ecosystem, consumers willingly choose to buy their products. They are not in anyway able to force people to buy their products such as Microsoft was able to do with PC manufactures (who had to pay for a Windows license for every machine they sold with or without windows or pay a much higher fee if they wanted to only include it with some systems).
Again, how do they distort competition? No one is forced to buy an iPhone. Every carrier is able to offer as many competitive brands as they want, and consumers can buy any phone they choose. People have decided that they prefer the total ecosystem and choose to buy Apple’s products.
You can argue that they would prefer to be able to make more choices, and I argue that you are incorrect, that is not what people want.
Of course, as I said it's definitely debatable and both positions have their fair share of arguments in favour.
What is clear to me is that EU regulators are more oriented toward the former than the latter and ultimately in the EU it's their opinion what's going to matter most.
No, I was not interpreting the law, just stating my opinion.
I see a great deal of harm. It means that things have to be less well integrated and more complicated. It makes Apple spend resources that may or may not benefit their customers, in an effort to aid their competitors. Again, if they held a 85% market share, you might convince me, but as someone who rarely uses Google services (especially search), I know that even the dominant player rarely has enough hold to prevent competition.
The "concept of antitrust regulation" can be applied to anything the regulator wants. When Amazon controlled 90% of the electronic book market, Apple was the company that the regulator decided was violating the rules. Spotify like to make it clear they have the majority of the users and that they are growing faster. It does not seem to me like Apple has prevented them from being the market leader.
A government will and must "micro-regulate" everything to protect its interest and its people.
That is why a government can regulate whether you can piss or spit in an alley or not, whether you can have only 1 child or 10 children. There are even government regulation not allowing anyone taking their shirt off in public areas. If governments does a lot of regulation for "micro" things how much more for things that affect its economy and a large number of its people.
I don't agree with this.
There is a difference between safety and security and consumerism and vote with your dollars. The NFC chip does not fall into the former bucket.
You may disagree but it is reality. A government uses law, justice system and prison system to enforce its regulation. I think I get why you disagree, because you are coming from a reality where the government is largely democratic but think about other forms of government like monarchy or a government under martial law or government like China which is largely totalitarian.
I am not sure what you mean about safety and security, this has nothing to do with NFC security but about Apple Pay competition. Because if its about safety and security on NFC then Apple would not allow other apps access to it. Remember all other apps can use NFC on the device except those that use it for contactless payment.