If you need to enter your passcode

A reader asked me about using face masks with Express Transit. The great thing about Express Transit with Suica and Octopus is that the user doesn’t need Face ID or Touch ID to use transit or buy stuff. It’s very convenient to have, especially in our face mask era. iOS 13.5 added a small Face ID tweak for easier passcode entry when wearing a face mask. It helps with the basic unlock but for me regular Apple Pay authentication is still a pain.

The reader wanted to know if the iOS 13.5 Face ID tweak affected Express Transit. It does not. You don’t need Face ID to use Apple Pay Express Transit. But Face ID needs to be ‘on’ in order for Express Transit to work and finding the right information on Apple support pages is a little confusing. The reference page you want is If Face ID isn’t working on your iPhone or iPad Pro>If you need to enter your passcode:

The key sentences are outlined in red. Wearing a face mask is not a problem with Express Transit and Face ID turned on. However, “five unsuccessful attempts to match a face,” turns off Face ID and Express Transit. You need to enter your passcode to turn on Face ID and Express Transit again.

Unfortunately turning off Face ID wearing a face mask with five unsuccessful attempts without realizing it is easy to do and trips up a lot of Express Transit users who are not aware of it. That’s why I suggest turning off the ‘Raise to Wake’ option in Settings > Display & Brightness. Doing so reduces the chance of ‘five strikes’ and makes Face ID with face mask life a little easier.

MTA OMNY Apple Pay Express Transit User Problems

Apple’s decision to offer Apple Pay EMV style Express Transit as a iOS 13 feature when adding cards to Wallet may not have been a good idea after all, especially on the work-in-progress mixed environment that is MTA OMNY. Manual swipe MetroCards will be around for a few years, and with Cubic Transportation running the show it is anybody’s guess when OMNY, the system and the MIFARE MetroCard replacement, will completely in place and running smoothly.

For every tweet saying Express Transit is great, there are plenty of complaints of unwanted OMNY charges because iPhone users didn’t know Express Transit was turned on. The thing is iPhone and Apple Watch have to be damn close for a read. Unless the device is in a pants or coat pocket or wrist that brushes on the OMNY reader, accidental reads can’t happen. Nevertheless Apple would have happier New York City customers keeping EMV Express Transit off by default, and leave default on for the native OMNY transit card, whenever that arrives.

UPDATE: The MTA OMNY reader + Apple Pay Express Transit problem in detail here

Tweet of the Day: iPhone X user kisses NFC problem goodbye with iPhone 11

Well that’s a nice way to solve a iPhone X Suica NFC problem: upgrade to iPhone 11. Suica performance on Apple A12 Bionic and A13 Bionic iPhone models is a whole new level over previous models thanks to the Secure Enclave design that bypasses iOS for transactions and also gives us Express Cards with power reserve. I love that he loves Suica again and says goodbye to QR too.

Bad Dance: EMV Express Transit slows down Apple Pay Suica

The EMV Express Transit option that arrived with iOS 12.3 is completely useless in Japan. Japanese transit companies will never support it because EMV is a poor technology match, not only because it kneecaps fast transit gate performance but also because complex fare structures cannot be supported on the EMV payment card read only format. Things might have been different if EMVCo had incorporated NFC-F and some FeliCa technology into their spec, but that will probably never happen either.

Nevertheless, people like me are intrigued by the multiple Express Transit card support in Wallet for native transit cards and EMV payment cards. I use Apple Pay Suica everyday and decided to turn on EMV Express Transit to see if there is any performance overhead. There is.

After a week of testing I can definitely say that turning on EMV Express Transit and using Apple Pay Suica is a bad dance. Express Transit momentarily forgets which way the NFC reader needs to spin. Instead of a smooth Suica waltz, there is a momentary pause and uncomfortable interlocking of arms. EMV Express Transit seems to introduce some new NFC dance steps into the usual read/write process that slows things down at transit gate readers a little and store readers by a noticeably wide gap.

Take it with a grain of salt as I can only test Apple Pay Suica + EMV Express Transit on a single iPhone XS running iOS 13 beta 7. Other devices running iOS 12.4 or the official iOS 13 release may be OK. A good rule of thumb is to forgo multiple Express Transit cards and stick with a single Express Transit card. Leave EMV Express Transit off if you don’t need it.

I’d love to hear any Apple Pay Suica + EMV Express Transit user feedback, please tweet @Kanjo if you have some observations to share.

While the screen is on: Background Tags and Apple NFC Evolution

Background NFC tags work when the iPhone screen is on

NFC background tag support that allows users to scan NFC tags without an app arrived with A12 Bionic iPhone XS/XR and iOS 12, but the feature is only becoming truly useful with the enhanced NFC tag support in iOS 13 Core NFC. The Japanese and UK governments have already announced ID card NFC tag support for iOS 13, Jennifer Bailey previewed a new NFC tag Apple Pay feature in May, and the iOS 13 Shortcuts app lets users deploy NFC tags to create their own HomeKit automations. These are exciting developments that are just the start of new powerful and innovative NFC services on the Apple platform.

Apple’s strong point is the tight integration of software services across different devices that no other platform can match. Apple Pay Suica works on iPhone and Apple Watch, but the latter combination of technology, function and size makes it a completely different and beguiling experience. Apple Pay on Apple Watch is its own special thing.

A Temporary Split in the NFC Evolution Line?
The evolution of Apple NFC on both iPhone and Apple Watch was in lockstep up until the arrival of A12 Bionic in 2018. The A12 Bionic NFC powered background tag and Express Transit power reserve features only work on iPhone XS/XR. Apple Watch Series 4 does not support these NFC features, nor does watchOS support the Core NFC framework, this means that NFC tag Apple Pay on Apple Watch is out of the question.

Is the feature split temporary or does it represent a different line of NFC evolution for Apple Watch? The absence of Core NFC makes sense because watchOS does not support 3rd party apps, at least not yet. Express Transit power reserve however, would be a great feature to have on Apple Watch as iOS 13/watchOS 6 Apple Pay Express Transit rolls out to Chicago Ventra, Brisbane myki and Hong Kong Octopus.

Getting that feature on Apple Watch depends on how quickly Johny Srouji’s A team can implement the A12 Bionic Secure Enclave design that handles basic Apple Pay transactions directly and bypasses the OS, on the S Series chip. I cannot believe they are not pushing hard to deliver the goods as soon as possible, perhaps even with Apple Watch Series 5 featuring a S5 Bionic chip.

Delivering a S5 Bionic would get Express Transit power reserve on Apple Watch with NFC performance gains as well. It would also give Apple the option to add NFC background tag reading later on as watchOS becomes more powerful and independent.

The iPhone 7 FeliCa Question
There is one fuzzy area of iOS 13 Core NFC and it is iPhone 7 FeliCa support. At WWDC19 Apple announced that all devices, iPhone 7 and above, would support the enhanced NFC tag lineup: NDEF, FeliCa, MIFARE, ISO 7816, ISO 15693, VAS. But this does not match up with Apple’s own device specs for adding a FeliCa Suica card to Apple Pay:

Apple is telling developers that all iPhone 7 models are good for FeliCa but telling customers that only iPhone 7 JP models are good for FeliCa. This means we get one of two scenarios:

  • iOS 13 retroactively adds FeliCa support to all non-JP iPhone 7 models. Apple can do this by adding device specific FeliCa keys as iPhone 7 NFC hardware is the same for all models worldwide.
  • iOS 13 Core NFC FeliCa tags work but non-JP iPhone 7 models (without FeliCa keys) do not work for FeliCa transactions at the terminal.

The latter ‘FeliCa keys vs. No FeliCa keys’ scenario is illustrated in a comment post by Reddit user FelicaDude, if I understand correctly, that without device specific FeliCa keys iPhone 7 only works in basic Read/Write mode without encryption, with FeliCa keys iPhone 7 works in Read/Write encryption mode necessary for local offline processing with payment terminals (i.e. Suica):

The international iPhone 7s can do basic FeliCa read/write without encryption, because they embed a FeliCa-capable CLF <contactless frontend>. Apple has chosen not to provision them with Osaifu-Keitai keys, probably to avoid paying royalties to FeliCa Networks for each device.

FelicaDude Reddit

The initial iOS 13 beta 3 release build (17A5522f) did not support iPhone 7 but the revised build (17A5522g) released yesterday does. I am intrigued that something is going on with iOS 13 and iPhone 7. It’s probably a vain hope that it could be connected with the upcoming Apple Pay Octopus transit card launch which requires a FeliCa capable device, though it does makes sense for Apple to launch the Apple Pay Octopus with a wide footprint of supported devices. Let’s keep fingers crossed that iOS 13 adds full FeliCa support to all iPhone 7 models and transforms them to the global FeliCa iPhone devices they deserve to be.

UPDATE
FeliCa Dude has answered and posted the definitive take of iPhone 7 FeliCa support for all things from Octopus to iOS 13 Core NFC. We own him thanks for taking the time to cover all the angles in such detail.