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Comment by ctdonath | Hacker News Reader

Also faster.

Double-tap watch or iPhone button, wave device near register, done. Fast.

That vs Walmart Pay tap iPhone button, [swipe to find icon,] tap icon, wait for app, tap scan button, position camera for QR code, wait for focus & recognize, done. Too long.

I tried Walmart's Scan-and-Go app. Idea was you could scan all your stuff before reaching the register, scan one QR code, pay, and leave. Took an inordinately long time. Walmart dumped it.

Edit: actually there has been a "tap to pay" available at many places. All too often it was turned off, and mildly confusing which cards had it (I had one that did, then its replacement card didn't, so there I was waving a non-tap card at a tap reader). The whole tech fizzled.

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Apple blocks 3rd party apps from using NFC. It's literally only usable in Apple Pay. Walmart can't implement it in an iOS app even if they wanted to.

What would implementing it in an iOS app even mean? If Walmart wants to support Apple Pay, they just need to use credit card terminals that can do NFC. Is the idea that if Walmart could implement it in their app, they could allow you to pay with some custom Walmart account instead of a credit card?

The point of companies having their own service like this, is so that the kickback to the charge company goes to them instead.

So instead of 1% of all mobile purchases going to Apple, it goes to walmart instead. With the scale of business Walmart had that can be upwards of a billion dollars a year.

Edit: actually there has been a "tap to pay" available at many places. ... I had one that did, then its replacement card didn't, so there I was waving a non-tap card at a tap reader. The whole tech fizzled.

Argh. I had the same thing happen. Just after getting used to using the tap-to-pay card, my bank replaced it with a "dumb" card and I was back to swiping it.

My AmEx card has had tap-to-pay functionality for years now. I keep it in my wallet where it is nearest the outside and can use without removing from my wallet. Easy. No buttons. No QR codes. And it's old tech. Still not seeing the obvious argument for throwing such an important piece of my public persona (personal finances and credit) into the same basket as my cell phone.

> Still not seeing the obvious argument for throwing such an important piece of my public persona (personal finances and credit) into the same basket as my cell phone.

Having it as part of your cell phone makes it much more secure (Apple Pay requires your fingerprint for it to work).

Contactless cards can get skimmed:

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jul/23/contactless-car...

Your cell phone's data is protected by a fingerprint reader or arbitrary-length passcode, while your wallet's data is protected by the other person not having a knife.

Your wallet is protected by the other person not having a knife. Your cell phone's data is protected by the other person not being willing to use their knife to cut off one of your fingers. ;-)

Muggers are still stealing iOS devices, which people can just permanently brick via iCloud now, so I wouldn't expect that level of foresight!

Parts are parts and iOS devices have a lot of non-commodity parts that can't get "bricked".

I was under the impression we don't have international blacklisting, so there's still money to be made shipping handsets abroad?

Nope. TouchID doesn't work with a dead finger. Has to be alive.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/16/why-a-disembodied-finger-...

I wasn't really being serious. But in practice such liveness sensors are incredibly easy to defeat.

Can you prove that for TouchID specifically? You have to defeat both capacitance and RF sensors, btw. And remember, it needs to be "incredibly easy" by the standards of random unhinged violent criminals stupid enough to commit two felonies in order to secure a phone which will be completely useless within the 60 seconds or so it takes the victim to sign in with his Apple ID and brick the phone. Any bank accounts present on the device would also be nearly-instantly disabled.

By the time you defeat TouchID, the device will be useless anyway. It's more than secure enough.

To be fair, if I've just lost a finger, it will take me considerably longer than 60 seconds to disable the phone.

https://blog.lookout.com/blog/2014/09/23/iphone-6-touchid-ha...

Except for when it works with glue

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/09/chaos-computer-club-hac...

careful doing that, i know someone who had 2 cards with nfc and was getting charged double - surprised the system somehow allowed it

Tesco in the UK have Scan-as-you-Shop, which sounds similar to your Scan-and-Go, the prime difference would be that you are given a dedicated device for doing the scanning rather than requiring you phone.

I've used this regularly for the past few months and had no real issues with it.

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