I’m hoping PATH and AirTrain will eventually get it on a pay per ride basis, like the current MetroCard setup.
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New York Subway Completes Rollout of Apple Pay Support
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London experience: Apple Pay is a slightly slower to authenticate than the old "Oyster" cards were. Maybe it is something like 700 - 1000ms instead of 200-400ms for Oyster. Certainly not 2-3 seconds though!
But in my view, the slight extra delay is more than made up for by the time saving of not having to fumble around for the card. Your phone is always at hand, and hard to lose.
I don’t get you Americans. You go and develop all of this amazing tech such as Apple Pay and then it takes years for it to be useful there. AP has worked in pretty much every location in the Uk for about two years. Few use cash here these days.
Historical reasons. Telephone infrastructure was much better here than in most other countries, so there was little impetus to use smart cards for a long time. Because we used magstripe entirely up until recently, the switch to smart device payments took longer because we had to switch a lot of the infrastructure.
QFC (a Kroger brand) is currently testing NFC support, so I suspect it'll get rolled out to the rest of the company soon.
As for the other holdouts, I wouldn't be surprised if they think that curbside pickup and delivery is a much better bet long term. For instance, Walmart Canada enabled contactless payment just in time for the holiday season, while Walmart US focused a lot of their advertising on the fact that they offer pickup/delivery. Likewise, Home Depot has contactless enabled in Canada, too, and not in the US--and also has curbside pickup here.
(And honestly, I'm thinking more and more that it is. After all, it's a lot more convenient to order online and have someone put your stuff in your car for you than to wait in a line and maybe only save 10-20 seconds by tapping a phone or card instead of inserting. Sure, those 10-20 seconds eventually add up, but you'll be able to serve way more people at a time through a website or mobile app than in person.)
IMO, if we had the choice of not getting screwed so badly by the pandemic (in exchange for Apple Pay and other NFC based payment methods being considered a market failure here), I would at least give it a second and third thought. Sure, QR (or quite possibly being permanently relegated to inserting cards) isn't great, but I don't think 350K+ deaths and counting (never mind the potentially millions of people with possible permanent aftereffects/disability) is either. And we definitely shouldn't have needed a pandemic to even think about using NFC.
Sure, but there's historically been a lot of resistance towards anything that increases card use, too. It's no surprise that cash was still the most used payment method for smaller purchases until a few years ago, after all.
(Hell, I still run into cash only businesses, and it's been a year since the pandemic kicked off. At least the restaurant I picked up takeout from the other day also accepted Venmo along with cash, so it wasn't simply a tax dodge?)
It does not cover unlimited ride cards nor Senior cards (which get auto refilled)... so it's a no-go for many.
Unless you need to use it at an MST terminal which is 90% of US terminals.
Or remove your mask to use it.
Not yet, or do you really think that the MTA has somehow not already thought of this?
Not yet, MTA says that would happen by summer 2021 but that was before Covid say it might be delayed.
It works with Google pay and Samsung pay SINCE DAY ONE.
It was NEVER an apple pay exclusive.
What????
This system isn't and was never exclusive to Apple.
Since day 1 it worked with Samsung & Google pay
That was true back in 2014 but that's definitely not the case now. Sure, it's not 100% but it's much better now--maybe 70-80% or so in general (and possibly higher if you take into account the traditionally problematic places--like restaurants--that have restrictions now).
Of course, YMMV depending on where you live/shop.
Of course. Still, I don't like beating up on the subway too much. It's literally the only thing that makes NYC possible.
I had exactly this same reservation when this first started testing. Those who haven't been on the subway might not be able to appreciate the sheer volume of people and the speed at which people fly through the turnstiles. As you say, any delay would just slow things to a crawl.
It didn't feel any slower than a successful metrocard swipe to me (and a millions times faster than that series of mis-swipes that inevitably happens as your train's door start closing). The sensor, at least on the turnstiles I've used, is placed a bit low, but it seemed like a pretty fluid motion to wave your phone by it as you move forward. There was no need to hover there, or any pause before it beeps and the turnstile unlocks.
I would prefer to see the sensors placed up where the metrocard slot is, but for now the two systems have to exist side by side. I'd imagine we'll see new turnstiles at some point? But then again, the remnants of token slots have been sitting there plugged up for decades now on some turnstiles...
I love the subway. Wouldn’t be NY without it.
Of course, it would be better if the A/C always worked, the trains always came on time, etc.
Credit card companies and marketers love that, but there are still plenty of people who prefer to use cash to opt out of the surveillance, and plenty of small businesses who prefer not to have their profits skimmed. Where I live, some places have discounts of several percent for using cash. I don't blame them one bit. And I always tip in cash if at all possible.
Not quite like that. Some commuter benefits come on a MetroCard so it's the MTA that needs to fix that
LOL, yeah, we can dream.I love the subway. Wouldn’t be NY without it.
Of course, it would be better if the A/C always worked, the trains always came on time, etc.
Of course they will. The MetroCard replaced the token the tap to pay card will replace the swipe MetroCard.
The. MTA is well aware that not everyone has a smartphone.
But the article does mention it lol. . . .well, let's be fair - the article doesn't mention that
Furthermore I can't wait until we can use it with transfers.
Apple pay has nowhere near 70 or 80 percent acceptance. The US as a whole isn't near that number in any way shape or form.
According to the National Retail Federation mobile contactless payments was only at 58% and that includes the 15% or so bump it got from Covid.