iOS 13 Apple Pay Suica Performance

The initial releases of iOS 11 and iOS 12 were not good for Suica performance. It was 3 months of teething problems. iOS 11 didn’t settle down until iOS 11.3 and iOS 12 was a mess until Apple fixed everything spectacularly in iOS 12.3, which also saw the debut of EMV Express Transit.

iOS 13 has a reputation of being buggier than previous iOS releases. However, I am very happy to report that Apple Pay Suica performance on iOS 13 and 13.1 is far superior to iOS 11 or iOS 12. Apple did a lot of work on Wallet performance in preparation for iOS 12.4 Apple Card, and general Suica performance has held the line and even gained a little in iOS 13.1. This is great news for Apple Pay Suica users: everyone can safely upgrade and use iOS 13.1 Suica.

Two very minor UI rough edges remain:

  • Commute Plan expiration notifications don’t work at all.
  • Missing text on the Suica card UI when the iPhone Language setting is Australian English. You can work around this ‘Bad Aussie Suica’ issue by using another English language setting.

I managed to put together a quick video showing iOS 13.1 performance on iPhone 11 Pro and hope to post a higher quality version soon.