Category: Touchless

iOS 15 Apple Pay Wallet preview: the Express Mode difference

Express Transit Suica ruins the Apple Pay experience for using anything else. You want Apple Pay to work that way everywhere but it doesn’t. Most of the time we trudge along using Apple Pay Wallet with face mask Face ID authorization, although the Apple Pay experience on Apple Watch is a big improvement as well as being a trusted device for secure intent.

iPhone users in America are finally getting a taste of Express Transit en masse with the 2020 rollouts of Apple Pay for SmarTrip, TAP, Ventra and Clipper. Apple recently rebranded Express Transit as Express Mode on their new Wallet webpage (in Japanese it’s called Express Card). The branding change may seem trivial but it has bigger implications for first time users of new Wallet services in iOS 15, Express Mode goes places that Express Transit cannot: digital keys and digital ID.

These functions are not new of course, Express Transit cards and Student ID cards have been opening transit gates and doors these past few years. But Express Mode is for everyone and personal: your keys and badge to unlock your home door, unlock and start your car and get you into the office. With these refinements and additions it’s safe to say that iOS 15 Wallet finally delivers the digital wallet dream people have been talking about since 2010. Wallet can replace your wallet.

What’s new
Last year I covered ‘coming soon’ Ultra Wideband Touchless and Code Payment (codeword Aquaman) Wallet developments. The Code Payments feature is still waiting in the wings. Steve Moser kindly confirmed that Aquaman code references are alive and well in iOS 15 with minor changes but this post will focus on announced features. In the WWDC21 Keynote Apple Pay section Jennifer Bailey announced keys and ID. The Wallet features you get from the ones listed on the iOS 15 preview page depend on the device:

Car keys with Ultra Wideband support (shareable)
iPhones and Apple Watches equipped with U1 chip* (iPhone 11 and later, Apple Watch 6)

Car keys without Ultra Wideband support (sharable)
Home keys (shareable)
iPhone XS • Apple Watch 5 and later*

Office key
Hotel key
“Device requirements may vary by hotel and workplace.”

ID in Wallet
iOS 15 devices
watchOS 8 devices (the fine print: Not all features are available on all devices)

None of the new features will be available when iOS 15 launches. Expect them with the iOS 15.1 update or later. NFC Car keys launched on iOS 13 and iOS 14 in 2020.

The A12 Bionic • iPhone XS and later requirement for Wallet keys is easy to understand: Express Cards with power reserve. A12 Bionic (and later) powered NFC bypasses the iOS overhead with a direct connection to the secure element. It is vital that people can unlock car and home doors even when their iPhone battery is out of juice. Up to 5 hours of power reserve makes a huge difference, but only for iPhone. *Apple Watch supports Express Mode but not power reserve.

  • Home Keys
  • Office Key
  • ID in Wallet
How does Home key unlock the faraway door?

The bigger story is UWB because it is new technology that works with the Secure Element to create a whole new experience. Up to now the Secure Element was exclusively NFC. Not anymore, the Car Connection Consortium (CCC) Digital Key 3.0 specification “maintains support for NFC technology as a mandatory back-up solution.” Digital car key is first and foremost a UWB solution with NFC relegated to the back seat.

UWB connectivity adds hands-free, location-aware keyless access and location-aware features for an improved user-friendly experience…

3.0 addresses security and usability by authenticating the Digital Key between a vehicle and the mobile device over Bluetooth Low Energy and then establishing a secure ranging session with UWB, which allows the vehicle to perform secure and accurate distance measurement to localize the mobile device.

Car Connectivity Consortium Delivers Digital Key Release 3.0 Specification

NTT Docomo and Sony demonstrated UWB car keys in action last January running on Android Osaifu Keitai hardware. Sony (FeliCa) and NXP (MIFARE and UWB chipsets) have worked closely to extend both FeliCa and MIFARE into the UWB Touchless era. The CCC Digital Key specification is open to any Secure Element provider. UWB + Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is simply another radio communication layer in addition to NFC.

Diagram from Car Connectivity Consortium (CCR) Digital Key 2.0 White Paper, the recently released 3.0 spec adds UWB
Mobile FeliCa UWB Touchless diagram from NTT Docomo, NXP MIFARE works exactly the same way

This is significant as it opens up UWB to anything that currently uses the Secure Element and NFC. Apple has not spelled it out but suggest UWB might work with Home keys and there is no reason UWB cannot work with all keys, transit cards and Student ID. The WWDC2021 session video Explore UWB-based car keys is a great introduction and highly recommended viewing if you have any interest in the subject. The session is a bit unusual in that the discussion covers RF hardware and performance design more than software. It feels like the target audience is car manufacturers. There is a lot of detail to get lost in but here are some simple but essential points:

Secure Element improvements: the SE has always used unique keys for mutual authentication, this has been extended with ranging key deviation

Secure communication at a distance: UWB and BLE identifier randomization with secure ranging is an important security feature as UWB Touchless works over much greater distances than NFC reader tapping

Zones: the precise motion and positioning tracking of a paired UWB device with a unique key allows for ‘passive entry’ action zones, walking towards the car unlocks it, walking away locks it, etc. without any other user interaction

RF transceiver and antenna system design: is a deep and difficult art that echos the Suica creation story

JR East (Suica) and Hong Kong MTR (Octopus) have both said they are developing transit gates that incorporate UWB. This makes sense as Mobile FeliCa is now UWB savvy but after watching the WWDC21 session video I can only marvel at the complexity of the big picture because UWB is about mapping and using space and movement to perform an operation.

The engineers face countless problems and challenges to juggle in their quest to build a transit gate that delivers the same FeliCa NFC speed and reliability with UWB…at rush hour. They have to consider radiation patters, system latency and processing power, localization algorithms and much more. If they achieve their stated goal, 2023 could be a very interesting year for transit.

ID in Wallet
Lots of people are excited about the possibility of adding a digital driver’s license to Wallet but as 9to5 Mac’s Chance Miller wrote, we don’t know much about about it at this point. Actually in Japan we do. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) released an English PDF: First Summary Toward the Realization of Electronic Certificates for Smartphones with a diagram that explains their digital ID system architecture. MIC remarked back in November 2020 that they are in discussions with Apple to bring the digital My Number ID card architecture to Wallet. The Android version is due to launch in 2023 and will likely employ the Mobile FeliCa Multiple Secure Element domain feature described by FeliCa Dude (FeliCa using NFC-B instead of NFC-F). A similar basic architecture with different protocols and issue process will undoubtedly be used for adding digital drivers licenses.

The Privacy question
I’ll be very interested to see how ID launches in America this fall. Which outside partner company or companies are providing the service to participating states and running the backend? I suspect it will be something similar to Student ID with Blackboard running the service for participating universities. The biggest security question in my mind is who besides the TSA will use ID in Wallet, and more importantly, how? Some governments and transit agencies are pushing face recognition as a convenience in addition to security. My preference will always be for having my ID on my own Secure Element rather than somebody’s cloud server, an ID that I authorize with my own secure intent.

Wallet UI and usability improvements
Wallet App didn’t get the makeover that some users asked for, but there are are a few small improvements. Up to 16 cards can be added in iOS 15, up from 12 in iOS 14. Archived passes and multiple-pass downloads help make Wallet more useable and remove some housekeeping drudgery.

I finally got two WWDC19 Apple Pay Wallet wishes granted: (1) dynamic Wallet cards and (2) region free transit cards. Apple Card does UI things in Wallet no other card is allowed to do. As far as I know this first changed with Disney’s MagicMobile launch on iPhone, Jennifer Bailey calls them “magical moments when you tap to enter.” There are similar low-key card animations in Home key and ID cards. It’s a very small step but I hope Apple adds more over time than just sprinkling seasoning card animations. Done wisely, dynamic cards could improve Wallet usability that convey important card status and account information.

Wallet card animations are slowly making their way into the picture, but will they ever be more than silly pretty fun?

Region free transit cards means that users no longer have to change the iPhone • Apple Watch region setting to add a transit card. In iOS 15 Wallet you get the full list regardless of the region setting. It’s not perfect but it is less confusing than adding a transit card in iOS 14.

  • iOS 15 add to Wallet step 2 Available Cards English

Summary
The overall reaction to iOS 15 has been somewhat muted but there are lots of new details. Apple Pay Wallet additions for home keys, office key, hotel key and ID build on technologies that have been on the Apple Pay platform for some time but Apple is leveraging them in new ways.

The unveiling of UWB Touchless is important and cutting edge, that might revolutionize secure transactions. The next step not only for car keys but for transit and other services that up to now have been limited to NFC. And this time, unlike NFC, Apple is leading the way for UWB.

The bottom line is that UWB opens up a lot of possibilities for many current NFC based solutions. Expect UWB Touchless support for Wallet cards in the near future that use Express Mode in new ways, and new UWB based features for a much smarter Wallet.

UWB Gallery
Screenshots from the Explore UWB-based car keys session video

  • This foundation for UWB Touchless will be the same for next generation digital transit cards

Zones
Zones are is one of the exciting aspects of UWB Touchless, where functions are triggered by the simple act of walking towards or away from the car. It will be interesting to see how this is applied to UWB Touchless transit gates.

  • Welcome zone for turning on things
  • Unlock zone
  • Walk away lock zone

Space and movement: the UWB process

  • Car has multiple UWB and BLE transceivers
  • 1) BLE proximity detection
  • 2) Authentication and Secure Element range key creation
  • 3) Secure ranging communication
  • 4) Car maps device trajectory with localization algorithm
  • 5) Device enters zone, car unlocks
  • Good localization algorithms are key for fast and accurate trajectory mapping and overall performance.
Last but not least, Power Reserve mode now supports Find My Network

iOS 15: A12 Bionic fine print features

Japanese media reaction to Apple’s WWDC21 Keynote was a big ‘meh’. Not surprising as many iOS 15 features won’t be available for Japanese iPhone users who are well acquainted with being a 1st tier market for selling Apple hardware but a 3rd tier market afterthought for Apple services. They also probably read the iOS 15 preview website fine print at the bottom of the page, every other line reads: available on iPhone (XS/XR) with A12 Bionic and later. Bottom line: to run all the iOS 15 bells and whistles you need iPhone XS and later. Here’s the list of iOS 15 features that require A12 Bionic and later:

  • FaceTime: Spatial audio, Portrait mode
  • Wallet: Car keys, Home keys, Office key, Hotel key and ID in Wallet (listed as iPhone XS and later instead of A12 Bionic for some strange reason, Home key and Office Key ‘coming in a software update to iOS 15’)
  • Maps: Interactive globe, Detailed new city experience, Immersive walking directions
  • Live Text
  • Siri: On-device speech processing, On-device personalization, Offline support, Fast on-device processing,
  • Dictation: On-device dictation, Continuous dictation
  • Weather: New animated backgrounds
  • Health: walking Steadiness

There appears to be a mistake that lists iPhone XS for UWB car keys. It should read iPhone 11 and later for UWB Car keys with remote keyless entry controls.

The A12 Bionic and later requirement for Wallet keys is easy to understand: Express Cards with power reserve. It is vital that people can unlock car and home doors even when their iPhone battery is out of juice. Up to 5 hours of power reserve makes a huge difference and it even works with UWB car keys, a surprising new development I hope to examine in the next post. Note the plural name difference: Home keys can be shared like Car keys. Hotel key and Office key are only for one.

The new Wallet car keys feature is rumored to be coming from Toyota, Honda and Nissan but nothing has been announced even though NTT Docomo demonstrated UWB car keys in action last January. Likewise there are no local 3rd party announcements regarding home keys and office key but the FeliCa and MIFARE support that comes standard in iPhone 8 and later makes it easy to implement local digital key services for Wallet. The Japanese My Number ID digital card is due to launch on Android Osaifu Keitai smartphones in 2022. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications who oversee the project have said they are in discussions with Apple to bring My Number ID card to Wallet.

For Japanese iPhone users however there are many features that just won’t matter because they won’t be available. The gap between services announced for USA/Europe/China is wide and can take years to make it to Japan. For iOS 15 a comparison looks like this:

  • USA iOS 15
  • JP iOS 15

Live Type for Japanese will be sorely missed, Weather maps is a tossup, Apple Maps JP is the usual mess. However even Japanese locations get the completely new cartography design unveiled in iOS 15 beta 1, the first real makeover since the 2012 launch. Only A12 Bionic and later devices get the full range of redesigned cartography but even on older devices iOS 15 new city maps do a nice job of minimizing the previous mess of orange, blue, red, brown Point of Interest clutter. Unfortunately the new cartography also has some major weirdness:

  • The good: iOS 15 new cartography minimizes POI clutter compared to previous versions
  • The bad: iOS 15 new cartography makes all buildings round

The new iOS 15 map cartography touched off an interesting Twitter thread:

A: Maps are supposed to be a reflection of reality. I’m sure they wouldn’t show a curve in a road that is straight in real life, so why put curves on square buildings? How can someone at Apple look at this and think “These curves sure do make usability better!”

B: As a counterpoint for discussion, where does “reflection of reality” fit with tube/metro/underground rail maps (eg. London, Tokyo)? I think ‘realistic’ and ‘accuracy’ are two different things for maps. As for thinking the style choices are useful and aid comprehension, well🤔

C: With iOS 15 emphasizing 3D/AR viewfinder navigation for pedestrians, I’m definitely expecting my square buildings to stay square and round buildings to stay round. Otherwise the feature will be useless for me!

B: Ok, now this is a use case that demonstrates the problem in the design choice🙇‍♂️👍

I plan to cover iOS 15 Apple Pay and Apple Maps in more detail after WWDC21 wraps this week.

‘Say Apple Pay’ is going away

The success of Apple Pay lies in its consistent and well integrated UI that hides complexity from users. There are limitations however, and users are bumping up against them the more they use Apple Pay and the increasingly complex Wallet. This happens with fellow gaijin in Japan unfamiliar with the JP mobile payment landscape and history. The differences are outlined in detail here but all you need to know is that at it was first conceived ‘say Apple Pay’ = the default Apple Pay card. This was short-circuited by the addition of Express Transit in 2016 for Suica, a new kind of default card that trumps the old one, that has been a problem on OMNY transit gates for manual swipe legacy MetroCard users.

The basic issue is outlined in FeliCa Dude’s tweet: when Wallet has multiple EMV cards, iPhone doesn’t know which EMV PSE (Payment System Environment) to present to the reader…the digital equivalent of card clash. The user has to manually select one. It’s one of the reasons why the Ventra system is open loop for plastic contactless plastic cards and Apple Pay without Express Transit, but not for EMV Express Transit. Instead Ventra uses closed loop EMV for Apple Pay Ventra, but EMV open loop vs EMV closed loop will always be an uneasy mix on the same system.

Officially Apple Pay only has single default payment card, the ‘say Apple Pay’ card. Unofficially you can have one payment card, one EMV Express Transit card, and multiple native Express Transit cards: one Suica, one PASMO, one Octopus, one Clipper, etc. Saying Apple Pay doesn’t work when there are multiple default cards.

This is going to get worse when Apple finally releases Apple Pay Code Payments which have been in internal testing since the first iOS 14 betas a year ago. We might see some Code Payment details during WWDC21, and I am sure that we will see more UWB Touchess action. Either way the days of saying Apple Pay are numbered. What kind of Apple Pay? NFC, QR or Touchless? And which default card? I’ve said it before and say it again:

There is one more interesting role that Apple has planned for UWB…one that promises to improve the entire Apple Pay and Wallet experience: communicating with the reader before transaction to select the right Wallet card for the job, at a distance, for a truly smart Wallet app. With national ID cards, passports and more coming to Wallet at some point, UWB could be the Wallet reboot we really need.

‘We really need a Wallet reboot’ is on full display with recently refreshed Apple Pay webpage with Wallet getting a whole separate page because Wallet holds many kinds of cards: payment, transit, reward, student ID, passes and card keys. There are some interesting branding tweaks that suggest some changes coming with iOS 15. The first one is the change from Express Transit to Express Mode. This brings it in line with Student ID which has been called Express Mode all along as it opens doors, like a transit gate, and pays for stuff, like Suica and Octopus. Express Mode/Transit debuted with the iOS 10.1 Apple Pay Suica launch in 2016, the Japanese UI uses the term Express Card which is a better fit as the Suica is more than just transit. Hopefully this is just a teaser for WWDC21 and iOS 15.

UWB Touchless Express Transit and Apple Pay for iOS 15?

A recent sudden surge of hits from Hong Kong accessing my December 2019 UWB Touchless Mobile FeliCa post seemed odd. I dug around and it appears that Hong Kong MTR, like JR East, is making noises about incorporating UWB technology in next generation transit gates.

iOS 14.5 added a new PassKit call for Bluetooth and the U1 chip integration since iPhone 11 and Apple Watch 6, coupled with global FeliCa support certainly puts Apple ahead of the game. I have no idea what WWDC21 will deliver but more UWB integration is a given.

Apple only mentioned UWB Touchless at WWDC20 in connection with digital car key without showing anything because the Car Connectivity Consortium Digital Key 3.0 spec was a work in progress. Now that the spec is in-place with BMW said to deliver car models incorporating UWB Touchless this year, will Apple show it in action? I think it’s highly likely, but since Car Key is a ‘Wallet Card’, and Wallet app Express Cards come is 3 types: Transit, Student ID, and Car Key, the more interesting question is…will Apple also show Touchless Transit and Student ID Express Cards? And what about Apple Pay?

People think Touchless is a completely new thing for ‘keep smartphone in pocket’ transactions, and they worry about security. You can’t blame them because marketers are selling the in-pocket payment experience. However, Touchless is simply long distance NFC without NFC. All UWB Touchless does is describe the frequency to use Bluetooth instead of NFC. The background stuff, secure element and so on, is exactly the same. This means user interaction is the same. For walking through transit gates and security doors, or unlocking your car, the convenience of Touchless is easy to understand: no more NFC tapping, just keep moving.

What about Express Card payments? The current Apple Pay Suica payment checkout experience: the user taps Suica on a touchscreen, or tells the clerk “Suica” then holds the device to the reader. The user has to give consent before the transaction is activated by checkout staff or the self checkout reader. For Apple Pay EMV transactions users have the extra step of confirming a transaction by Face ID/Touch ID to complete it.

Realistically however, in what situations does Touchless make store checkout more convenient and faster? Drive thru certainly, supermarkets…maybe, but most stores will probably not want to invest in Touchless without a good reason when the NFC readers they already have installed get the job done. There is one more interesting role that Apple has planned for UWB however, one that promises to improve the entire Apple Pay and Wallet experience: communicating with the reader before transaction to select the right Wallet card for the job, at a distance, for a truly smart Wallet app. With national ID cards, passports and more coming to Wallet at some point, UWB could be the Wallet reboot we really need.

And then there is EMVCo. The problems with UWB Touchless for EMVCo are that: (1) Touchless only works with devices with batteries, á la AirTag, and doesn’t work with the current plastic card model, (2) UWB + Bluetooth level the digital playing field with FeliCa and MIFARE, no more ‘real’ vs ‘who cares’ NFC hardware flavors to split hairs over. The plastic card NFC limitation is probably a bitter pill for everybody but especially for EMVCo members and issuers as plastic card issue is big business, and many customers are more comfortable with plastic cards. For those reasons I think EMVCo will be the last to support UWB Touchless, if they do at all. On the plus side Touchless does give digital wallet platforms an edge to create smart aware wallets, digital does NFC and Touchless, plastic only does NFC. We’ll find out about Apple’s UWB Touchless roadmap at WWDC21.

WWDC21 Apple Pay Wish List: new Wallet app

It’s that time of year again, to ponder the mysteries of Apple Pay, Wallet, PassKit and Core NFC in the next major iOS release. I wasn’t planning a list this year because all the things covered last year: UWB Touchless CarKey, QR Code Payments, etc., are still lurking in PassKit calls and internal beta test builds and have yet to see the light of day. And then there is App Clips, a solution that finally leverages the versatility of NFC tags and iPhone NFC with reader mode was the big WWDC20 story, but it didn’t come into focus either. Too many COVID distractions.

No, no, the only thing that mattered to users and developers was this: when will Apple do something about the Face ID with face mask problem? The eagerly awaited iOS 14.5 Unlock with Apple Watch feature will almost certainly be the most popular feature of iOS 15 too. There are some interesting new PassKit tidbits in iOS 14.5: PKRadioTechnology type properties for NFC and bluetooth, the later for UWB Touchless use. This is the same pattern we saw at the end of the iOS 13 cycle with PassKit Secure Element Pass references replacing NFC Certificate Pass.

So what’s on the slab for all things WWDC21 iOS 15 Apple Pay? I have no idea. UWB Touchless and QR payment support lurking in the background might see the light of day, App Clips might get some refinements. Nothing really new. So I asked readers what they wanted for iOS 15 Apple Pay and the answer was clear: a Wallet app reboot. I didn’t think much about it until I saw the list of China T-Union add card Wallet options for mainland China.

The Apple Pay China Transit card list is long and getting longer

More Apple Pay Transit cards are on the way but there’s another problem, digital ID cards (passports, driver’s license, national identity cards, etc.). Apple Pay Student ID MIFARE cards landed back in iOS 12, but Apple has grander plans revealed in a NFC digital ID patent filing. The Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) has plans for a digital version of My Number Card (Individual Number Card) and is already in negotiations with Apple. Where and how do digital ID cards fit in the current Wallet model that only holds a maximum of 12 cards? Something has to give.

Wallet has a very simple rule: any card that loads a Java Card applet into the secure element has to reside in Wallet, the maximum number depends on how many Java Card applets it can hold at any one time. Any card or developer that wants to loads applets and use the secure element also has to have a PassKit NFC/Secure Element Certificate Pass. This is covered by NDA but a company called PassKit (not Apple) gives us an idea what Apple’s NFC/Secure Element Pass guidelines are:

Apple care a great deal about the user experience. Before granting NFC certificate access they will ensure that you have the necessary hardware, software and capabilities to develop or deploy an ecosystem that is going to deliver an experience consistent with their guidelines.

Yeah, the end to end user experience, the whole reason behind the success of Apple Pay. But the Apple Pay user experience has seriously declined in the Face ID with face mask era. The current Wallet with its card metaphor has reached a wall, stuffing digital ID and Code Payments into the mix along with non-secure element Wallet tickets, boarding passes and reward cards, all using same old card UI, will only break the user experience on top of the Face ID with face mask inflicted damage.

Even if Apple doesn’t add new functions to iOS 15 Apple Pay, they must lay groundwork for a new, flexible and far more useful next generation Wallet app, for adding, storing, configuring and most of all, using an even growing collection of payment cards, transit cards, CarKey, reward cards, passes and digital ID items. Anything to save us from the cacophony of payment services, apps and reward goodies chasing our money and slowing us down at checkout with finding, unlocking, displaying a reward code (if the WiFi connection is good, heaven help those waiting in line when it’s bad) and finally paying. Whew.

The whole point of Apple Pay Wallet was to free us from physical card clutter. After 7 years of Apple Pay and payment apps we have digital clutter that’s almost worse than the original problem that digital wallets and smartphones were supposed to free us from. Let’s get our eyeballs and attention spans back.

Also see: UWB Touchless Express Transit and Apple Pay for iOS 15?