Whatever

No, not in other words pointless. Noise means insignificant in comparison to e-commerce. I have never said NFC is pointless. It obviously has a lot of point for someone wanting to wire up their fridge


What you actually said was "I cannot remember the last time I saw someone without a watch". That to me says in your living memory you haven't seen someone without a watch. While we are accusing each other of lying I will claim that is a lie - or you have a very quiet hotel !


The implication of that is that I am lying. To be fair I am in Kenya at the moment and it is probably less common to own a watch, however 4 of the party were westerners.

Madness?

Madness like thinking that phone calls, texting, surfing the net, playing games, taking photos are all more common uses of smartphones than using NFC in the home?

Yeah - utter madness.


No! Niche does not actually mean "no-one uses it".

And tdenson has already explained what he meant by "noise" - that it isn't used that much. Which is not saying it is pointless.

How about an example of an Apple product, to help get it through that none of this is about Apple (perversely, but hey.) Something like Apple TV might be considered "noise" to the company's phone and computer business. But that isn't to say is pointless, or that no-one has an Apple TV.


Maybe you should do yourself a favour and get some manners.

No, but it wouldn't surprise me if Apple are the first technology company to really make a success of contactless payment. But none of us know how it will pan out yet, we haven't even seen the product.

I would suggest that the reason Apple is the largest company (by stock value) in the world and takes the lions share of phone industry profits is to do with the fact that they don't chase everything they could. They focus on premium phones. Is that good enough for you (of course not) ?

Looks like you were mistaken Stiggles.

Either that or deliberately misquoting.

Just to hijack this for a minute, my feelings on it at the moment are that it's too slow. I know it isn't SLOW, but it's being measured against swiping any signing rather than other methods. It might be very slightly quicker than Chip & PIN, but it's definitely not faster than our contactless system that involves no user input at all. It's even slower if people are messing about selecting a different card.

Imagine it at rhe barriers on the Underground. Even with your phone ready, as you'd have your Oyster or debit card ready, you have to tap it, wait for the information to be displayed, then authenticate. By that point, you've got a queue of angry people behind you. Right now, you can do it without breaking stride.

Valid points. As I just said above, none of us yet know how this is going to pan out. For all we know Applepay might find its niche in higher value transactions that you currently cannot use contactless for. I'm sure the boardroom of Apple though have a plan

That's a valid point - although to be fair ticket barriers are not a point of payment.

There will be pros and cons with any system - with current contactless with cards you often have to hand your card over. I know its only for a few seconds, but your card details are on display. With Apple Pay none of your information is ever on display or passed to the store, so I think has security benefits.

To be expected, though whether it ever unlocks I'm unsure.

You don't buy an iPhone to make use of it via standard USB or USB OTG.

A feture that is useless at the moment. All I am saying, is that they should say its currently useless. However then they wouldnt be able to put a tick in the box would they?


Which feature did Samsung provide, that was for marketing only?

As I said above, nothing wrong pointing out the feature, as long as you specify that the feature is currently useless.

Wise considering IOS 8 surprisingly sounds more Beta than IOS 7 did.
I hope most users are playing a slow wait and see game in choosing when/if to install OS 8.

The 'No going back' policy does somewhat makes it a dilemma.

I completely agree. Paying by phone seems like a cool idea (and I would love to try it out) but it's not quicker or easier compared to using your contactless card.

Perhaps it might be more secure but with banks promising to cover costs of lost or stolen cards I don't see that as an issue at all.


They are now in London, you can use your contactless cards just as you would an Oyster card at the barrier. That is exactly where you would tap your phone if you were to use it to pay on the tube.

The impression I got from Apple's launch is that they (and presumably Visa as well as it is they who plan to help bring it to Europe) are trying to move contactless payments away from the current "low value payments only" and more into the mainstream.

In that sense paying by phone may be more in competition with "chip and pin" cards.

It is a profitable idea.

Why should banks spend money giving away free cards when you can get the user to pay for it all?

Fair enough - although I would still say that LU ticket barriers are a atypical example of where you would pay for something.

Don't forget in the USA they don't really have any contactless and haven't yet seen chip & pin !! But chip & pin is due by end of 2015 and contactless is coming with the new till kit.

Interesting. It will obviously have been planned from a U.S. perspective - but VISA have said it is coming to Europe in 2015 (and I expect the UK will be early on the Europe rollout)

Well plenty of confusing spin in this story, but I hope retailers don't start to turn NFC Paywave etc off here in the UK too.

NFC cards are extremely convenient when doing small payments.

What spin is confusing you?

Ahh you haven't heard this news!

Retailers are disabling NFC readers to shut out Apple Pay

The retailers, through a joint venture formed in 2012, are building their own mobile payment app, called CurrentC. It's expected to launch next year. In the meantime, these retailers have no intention to support Apple Pay.

Following Apple's announcement last month, both Wal-Mart and Best Buy confirmed to The Wall Street Journal that customers would not be able to use the system in their stores. Earlier this week, a leaked internal memo from Rite Aid revealed that the drug store chain was modifying or disabling its NFC readers, preventing access to Apple Pay (and other systems, like Google Wallet and wireless carrier-backed SoftCard, which also depend on the contact-less technology). A representative later confirmed the news to iMore. Today, CVS followed suit and shut out Apple Pay, according to reports. Both will support CurrentC on launch next year. The companies have not immediately returned requests for comment.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/25/7...-out-apple-pay

Although the verge not the most reliable source, not really an abundance of actual facts there, for those willing to look.

some I imagine already readying the pitchforks.

Yes, I had read that news. Did you find it confusing like AW? Or did you think it is spin, like AW?

Yes, and as we know in the UK retailers see plenty of cons in NFC.
How has not seen an NFC machine here in the UK and found it turned off?

http://www.fierceretail.com/retailit...nfc/2014-03-26
Oh look, this story dates back to March and, if you read it, well before that too.

I'd suggest it is no NFC fees via Applepay that i the problem but average NFC all round that make far too costly to accept.

"It seems the retailers simply found the expense too high, according to ComputerWorld."

But with the spin I bet those pitchforks are 'very competitive' by now over at the Appleinsider comments page.
And on this cost thing, I'm not 100% that happy that stores choose to increase costs in order to accept Credit cards rather than just Debit cards. We pay for it in the end, NFC included.

For a company that produces stuff that people claim "just works" there has been a lot of problems recently .....

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/18...s-and-bugs.htm

Apple pay seems to "work" and then "work again"