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Comment by fuzzy2 | Hacker News Reader

> - This doesn't even solve the issue.

Right you are, but for a different reason: Face masks entirely break Apple Pay. If you have an Apple Watch, lucky you, you can use the watch to pay instead. If you don’t? Well, tough luck.

Unlock with Watch apparently does not work with Apple Pay.

/e: Wasn’t aware of activating Pay using the code. Oops. :D

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> Face masks entirely break Apple Pay

I might be misunderstanding you, and it’s far from ideal, but you can still use your passcode - I do it all the time.

Ah, indeed. I always thought this was not possible due to silly security requirements. Could’ve sworn this wasn’t possible back on my old iPhone 7.

I'm sure passcode has always been a fallback option. I used to see it all the time when I had an iPhone with a Apple Pay compatible card some years ago.

> Unlock with Watch apparently does not work with Apple Pay.

I find Apple Pay so much easier to use with the Watch that I never can remember how to use it on the phone.

It’s useful for some situations where there are obstacles, for example drive-thru checkouts at fast food restaurants or gas stations.

Yeah, in general too many places still put the NFC readers too close to the cashiers because they still expect people to hand over cards like its 1999. Getting a watch near to some of those readers is far easier than most phones.

Something I just found out on Friday when my iPhone battery ran out while at the store: my Apple Watch could still make a purchase even though it didn’t have a cell connection. Pretty great!

Yep, I realized the same once when I didn't have my phone with me. It's just representing card data to the scanner, so it doesn't need a network connection.

Yup, some niceties like transaction finalized notifications don't catch up to your watch until you have a network connection, but nothing show stopping. (Your phone often still gets them immediately, but obviously if you don't have it with you, the tree fell in the forest and you don't know if it made a sound.)

I've been using Apple Pay from my watch since I got it, but only 2 weeks ago I found out I can pay for the Bus and MRT with my watch also! So I no longer need to carry around 1 additional card. (Singapore)

You can still use Apple Pay with a passcode.

If you want this, why not pay with the watch itself?

You can't just enter your passcode for Apple Pay?

You can, but the above poster and original poster seem to be saying that fallback to passcode is a failure in it self.

You can

You can. I do it multiple times per week. It adds an extra 10s to “being ready for the register” but it’s hardly worth complaining about in a pandemic.

I just wish Apple Pay had a longer timeout because I want to have it open before I reach the register but by the time they're ready to scan it reauths.

You definitely can, it says “Pay with Passcode” [1]

1. https://www.imore.com/sites/imore.com/files/styles/large/pub...

Yep, I had to disable Face ID for Apple Pay because it was too frustrating to use in stores with a mask on.

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