Recent changes in iOS 12 Apple Pay Wallet are fascinating and unusual. iOS 12 started out with Apple Pay Suica Express Transit performance problems all over the place. By iOS 12.3 Express Transit issues were fixed with stellar performance, a new EMV Express Transit option was added, and Suica card had a whole new design that I call Apple Card Suica because it incorporates UI elements from Apple Card.
This is unusual because big changes like that are for big updates like iOS 13. I guess Apple decided not to wait for iOS 13 to roll out Apple Card, and made big changes to Wallet starting in iOS 12.2. It will be interesting to see what new Apple Card Wallet functions are offered to developers at WWDC19. My take is that developers will get to do all the things Apple Card does because Apple wants to encourage developers to migrate useful functions out of apps and into Wallet cards.
The dynamic Wallet card art of Apple Card is especially fascinating. One of the problems with static card art in iOS 12 Wallet is it doesn’t do anything and gobbles up precious screen space. Apple Card dynamically changes colors to give the user important information. This dynamic function is very useful and solves some Wallet UI problems.
Suica Commuter cards in iOS 12.3 don’t have enough space to display ‘Add Money’ and ‘Renew’ buttons on the main card along with the commute route. Instead, users have to dig down a level to find them along with the commute plan expiration date. Add Money, Renew, commute plan route and expiration date are important card items that need to be on the main card screen.
Dynamic card art elegantly solves this problem. Suica App already does this in the app by displaying the commute route and commute plan expiration date on the virtual Suica card, just like it does on plastic Suica. Dynamic card art in iOS 13 Wallet would be the perfect solution, all the important items fit on the main card screen. Card art is finally useful and saves screen space instead of wasting it.
Full coverage on the WWDC19 iOS 13 Apple Pay Wish List
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