Apple Pay Transit Beta Forever

iOS 11.3 Apple Pay added support for Beijing and Shanghai China Express Transit cards and iOS 11.4 will evidently continue the ‘Express Transit Beta’ rollout with support for Jiangsu, Shenzhen, Wuhan and Chongqing transit cards.

Unfortunately a reader reports that Apple Pay Transit users in Beijing and Shanghai are encountering the same kinds of NFC gate error problems that iPhone X Apple Pay Suica users have experienced since November.

Another reader mentioned that the Apple engineer who got fired when his daughter uploaded a iPhone X video on YouTube last year was the iPhone X NFC lead. A Japanese reader also reports that his iPhone X Suica problem is worse since upgrading to iOS 11.3 and matches my own iOS 11.3 iPhone X Suica experience. Suica transit gate errors are more frequent than iOS 11.2.5 ~ 11.2.6.

Apple is currently advertising for 19 NFC related engineer positions including a field test engineer for Japan. I think the iPhone X Apple Pay Suica problem and the Apple Pay China Transit beta problem will be us for a while longer. Both are clearly “beta” problems but beta should never be an excuse for delivering inferior products and services.

iOS 11.4 Developer PreviewApple Jobs for NFC engineers

For more information please see:
iPhone X Suica Problem Q&A Exchange Guide (English Version)
iPhone X Suica問題Q&A交換ガイド(日本語版)