Apple Pay Suica Recharge Performance in iOS 12.4 b4 and the Apple Card Connection

Apple, Apple Pay Suica, Apple Pay Transit, EMV, NFC-Felica, Suica, Transit
  • Start a Suica recharge
  • Cancel the recharge
  • Even after canceling the recharge it still processes and updates the Suica balance

Okay A12 Bionic and FeliCa fans, try this on iPhone XS/XR with Apple Pay Suica on iOS 12.4 b4:

  • Initiate a Suica Recharge
  • While the recharge is processing swipe up and you will feel the haptic feedback bump indicating the recharge process has been cancelled, the Apple Pay ‘ka-ching’ all done sound and checkmark never happens
  • On the Suica Recharge screen tap cancel and go back to the main Suica card screen where the recharge is processing and updates the Suica balance
Apple Pay Suica recharge just keeps on going even after cancellation

So, the Suica Recharge process barrels along without giving feedback. iOS didn’t do this before, is it a bug or a feature, and what’s happening? It’s related to what I observed in the previous post where the Suica FeliCa prepaid transaction and EMV Apple Pay postpay processing happened simultaneously because the A12 Bionic Secure Enclave processes FeliCa transactions directly without iOS.

We now have an explanation why EMV Express Transit went missing in the first few iOS 12.4 beta releases: Apple was doing lots of heavy duty Wallet optimization to make the prepaid recharge process fast and bulletproof.

But why? We have an explanation for that too: Apple wants the Apple Card EMV postpay to prepaid Apple Cash card recharge performance to be fast and absolutely bulletproof. The Apple Cash connection with Apple Card is a huge selling point, and Apple is making damn sure that people are going to love it for the reliable Apple Cash e-money recharge performance, even if that means breaking Suica recharge a little to do it.

This kind of aggressive optimization is a good ‘problem’ for Suica to have, and because all things Suica, from the UI changes to the Express Transit performance improvements since iOS 12.2 have been a testing ground for Apple Card, unavoidable. After all, Apple Pay Suica is the closest thing to Apple Card with Apple Cash that Apple has going, making Suica a great test environment for new Apple Pay development. Hopefully Apple will fine tune and fix remaining Suica recharge issues before the final release and Apple Card debut.

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