Is this the last time? Just a few thoughts as iOS 13.5 closes in on what hopefully will be a late May delivery, also rumored to be the launch iOS for Apple Pay Octopus. Recent beta test feedback says the minimal system for using Apple Pay Octopus was raised from iOS 13.2 to iOS 13.4.5 (rebranded by Apple to iOS 13.5). Also a new Schedule of Fees and Guidelines is due May 20. The Hong Kong Economic Times eZone site has taken this to mean that both iOS 13.5 and Apple Pay Octopus will launch on the May 20 Octopus Fees and Guideline update day.
The enthusiasm is understandable, but a similar situation happened in December with no launch. In short, hope for the best but don’t get your hopes up. We’ve been down this road before, but time is running out. If Apple Pay Octopus doesn’t launch in the iOS 13.5 timeframe, it’s not launching at all.
There aren’t any technical reasons for the delay; after all the Smart Octopus mobile service on Samsung Pay has been operating since December 2017 with Mobile SIM service before that. I believe it’s a result of the pressure politics facing Hong Kong, pressures both economic and governmental.
Out of Time Octopus
Octopus was the world’s first transit platform business that extended the transit smartcard to include payments and many other services but Octopus Cards Limited (OCL) has been slow extending the service to include mobile. Instead of putting early effort into digital wallet support for Apple Pay/Google Pay/Samsung Pay, OCL wasted time and resources developing the niche Mobile SIM product which really didn’t pan out.
This lag coupled with the rise of AliPay and WeChat Pay QR Code payment empires put enormous pressure on OCL to do something comprehensively mobile which it did with the O! ePay service in early 2019. But it’s not the only pressure: with so much traffic and business from the mainland, OCL owner MTR is looking to add QR Code Open Loop transit support (paywalled link) at some point. There is also the pressure of creating a Greater Bay Area transit card, and pressure from credit cards and banks. Every player wants a piece of the action.
Perhaps MTR gates will eventually look like the ones in Guangzhou with PBOC/FeliCa/QR Code readers supporting Octopus, China T-Union, AliPay/WeChat Pay, perhaps even EMV contactless bank cards:
At which point I say OCL doesn’t have a viable transit platform business anymore. Mainland China dumped the MIFARE based Beijing and Shanghai card architecture for their own slower PBOC 2.3/3.0 China T-Union standard, I don’t think it’s a stretch to see the same thing happening to Hong Kong Octopus at some point.
Supporters will undoubtably point out the technical merits of China using a single transit standard but that’s just a red herring. Smart devices and digital wallets handle all protocols and will continue to incorporate new technologies. The deciding factors will be good old money and politics: is it more profitable to keep Octopus in place or junk it in favor of QR and China T-Union, and who benefits from it all?
Octopus is living on borrowed time. If it doesn’t aggressively expand services on digital wallet platforms, it doesn’t have a future. Apple Pay Suica turned things around for Suica, let’s hope the Apple Pay Octopus launch can do the same for Octopus.
UPDATE: on May 18 at 4:30 PM, an Octopus system glitch temporarily showed an option to add Apple Pay Octopus cards to Wallet to some iOS Octopus app users, but the feature not functional on the Apple Pay Wallet end. The glitch was quickly fixed but this is a sign that a service launch is imminent post glitch rumors say June 2. (Edit: June 2 did turn out to be Apple Pay Octopus launch day)
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