Tag: Apple Watch

Hands Free Suica

After iOS 13.2 hit the final beta I migrated my Suica from iPhone to Apple Watch to give watchOS 6 Apple Pay Suica a proper shake down. Even after only a few days I can already say that Apple Pay Suica performance on watchOS 6 is far better than any version of watchOS 5. Not only does it feel more responsive, Suica Express Transit seems more sensitive further away from the gate reader hit area, crazy as that sounds.

Going back to Apple Pay Suica on Apple Watch also brings back a great feature I missed on iPhone: hands free Suica. Incredible as it sounds, Apple Watch is still the only wearable device for Suica, the only choice for hands free Suica. Once you get used to hands free Suica Express Transit with Suica Auto Recharge, it spoils you for any other kind of cashless payment. Hands free shopping and transit is a breeze that makes everything else feel like a huge step backwards.

Apple should be marketing the hell out of it in Japan but don’t. What a waste of a huge and exclusive marketing opportunity. When Apple Pay Octopus finally, finally, finally launches, I expect Hong Kong Apple Watch users will really appreciate hands free Octopus.

Apple adds contactless student ID cards in Wallet

Campus-Apple-Pay_Duke-entrance_10022018

Apple hit the on switch for contactless student ID cards today. The press release has nice photos but is vague. There is much more detail on the Apple support doc Use student ID cards in Wallet on your iPhone or Apple Watch.

The most interesting detail is the device eligibility: iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus and later, Apple Watch Series 1 and later but Express Mode isn’t available on iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus. NFC-A/B, definitely not FeliCa but MIFARE. Blackboard’s IC card format is both FeliCa and MIFARE but the eligible device list makes it clear that student ID cards are PassKit NFC Certificate powered MIFARE Card Emulation.

The rest of the support doc details confirm the cards are stored value (SV) with Express Mode and students can recharge them with Apple Pay, a credit/debit card in the eAccounts app or cash at the “school’s self-service machines”. In other words it’s just like Suica App and Apple Pay Suica for door locks instead of transit.

UPDATE
The Blackboard IC card format uses both FeliCa and MIFARE but Blackboard has been migrating IC cards to MIFARE. Apple has not publicly announced MIFARE support, the only place to find out for this kind of thing is WWDC, but it is the only technology compatible with Blackboard IC card formats that could power the express card features of iOS 12 student ID cards across all eligible devices.