iOS 16 Apple Pay and Wallet Fine Print Features

iOS 16 doesn’t have many big new flashy features. There is the Dynamic Island for iPhone 14 Pro, which I would love to have but I’m holding on to my iPhone 13 for another year…or two. Fortunately there are plenty of nice refinements for the rest of us without the latest greatest iPhone hardware, Apple Pay and Wallet are no exception. The full list is on the New features available with iOS 16 page. As usual the iOS 16 and watchOS 9 pages for each country are edited to reflect available, or coming soon, “Key Features and Enhancements” for the region balanced against the full spec USA feature set.

An interesting thing about iOS 16 Apple Pay and Wallet is that not all the listed features apply to regular users…at least not at first. Some are behind the scenes stuff for merchants and developers that will take time to land in our Apple Pay Wallet as features we can use. Let’s take a quick look by breaking down the categories.

1) General improvements (for everybody)
Quick access menu: a handy new shortcut menu for all Wallet cards and passes via tapping the More button. The menu varies according to the card feature set. Transit cards like Suica have the most, payment cards without notifications (all Japanese issue payments cards) have the least. It’s a nice tweak most useful as a fast way to toggle individual card notifications on and off. Zollotech posted a video that covers quick access menus for Apple Card and Apple Cash along with an overview of iOS 16 Apple Pay and Wallet option settings.

Apple Pay Order Tracking: announced at WWDC22, this new Wallet button sitting next to the ‘Add’ button seems like a no-brainer: when I order something with Apple Pay I get automatic tracking…nice but I wonder how it will play out. Apple Store app for example already has robust tracking and accepts Apple Pay, so do a lot of other apps. Will they remove the function from their app, offer choice between in-app or Wallet order tracking, or something else? Either way it will be a while before we see merchant updates.

2) Digital key features (for most markets): iOS 15 was the Apple Pay and Wallet upgrade that set the course for the next few years with keys and ID. The iOS 16 improvements are about making adding a key and family sharing easy. Hotel keys are now sharable like car and home keys, gotta let the kids have access and all…though I suspect office keys remain on the un-sharable list.

Key sharing (coming with an update later this year): in addition to Messages and Mail, 3rd party messaging apps such as What’s App will support key sharing. In Japan the only 3rd party messaging app that matters is Line. iOS 16 looks to be the breakout year for keys in Wallet.

Add keys from Safari: more important that it might seem at first, there are plenty of uses for loading a key into Wallet from a time sensitive Safari web page link instead of the usual time wasting mess of downloading an app, creating an account, making a reservation, etc. You know the drill. Digital key issue remains a complex thing that usually requires an app with an account to securely issue a mobile key remotely with set limitations (time, area, etc.). Hopefully adding keys in Safari gives developers easier service options, but connecting identity with access remains a challenge.

It’s important to note that issuing digital keys is only one step of the complex process that allows guests to bypass the front desk. Apple’s announcement certainly does not spell the end of the hotel app as we know it…

It’s a big step toward streamlining a process that has, until this point, prevented many guests from using their phone as a digital room key. But, Wallet only solves one segment of the end-to-end operation required to get a guest checked in and room access issued. The bigger issue is connecting identity with access, which requires many more steps beyond issuing a key.
How Apple’s Newest Features Will Affect Hotel Check-in

The solution to this is the new iOS 16 ID in Wallet features for apps in the next section.

Multi-stay hotel keys: if you stay in the same hotel chain on your trip that already supports Wallet hotel keys, you might have the opportunity to use this feature where you load one hotel key into Wallet that works across all your reservations. Like order tracking I think this one will take time for the major hotel chains to get onboard, and of course the devil is in the check-in/activation details.

Easy device migration for keys: I assume this refers to the Previous Cards Wallet category that came with iOS 15. The iOS 16 features page text blurb suggests a possible UI tweak, but I don’t have any key to test. We’ll have to wait and see.

3) ID in Wallet features (USA only): the next big step for ID in Wallet after getting them out the door is app support. This is where digital ID moves beyond airport TSA security checks and becomes really useful.

ID cards presented in apps and Verify your identity in apps sound exactly the same so you have to read the fine print carefully. ID cards in apps describes 2 specific pieces of information: identification and age, validated by Face/Touch ID. Taking a wild guess, there are plenty of account registrations that only need to confirm your identity and age as part of a signup process. Digital ID can vastly simplify the process.

Verify identity in apps describes ‘verified information’, i.e. more than just ‘I am this person, I am xx years old’. The iOS 16 pages shows a car rental app confirming a user’s driver license status and driving privileges. This has a lot more use (and abuse) potential. The hotel app and key issue verification problem mentioned earlier is exactly what digital ID in apps can help solve. MaaS apps are another example where verification is essential for offering special discounts for seniors, locals, inbound visitors, etc. Reliable, secure and universal digital ID would solve a lot of service problems, but privacy, how does the app use digital ID information, how long is it stored, etc., is always a concern.

Apple Pay features for merchants and developers: It’s a little strange that Apple is listing Merchant tokens and Multiple merchant support on the feature page. These are backend additions to PassKit and it will take time for merchants and the developers they employ to implement them. Both of these expand the Apple Pay experience. For me merchant tokens is the more powerful feature, one that enable reoccurring and auto-reload payments. It could be a boon for subscription services and much easier auto-recharge in apps and transit cards like Suica and PASMO. Auto-recharge is one of my favorite Apple Pay Suica features and it would be great if JR East freed it from the shackles of Suica App and View Card and added Apple Pay auto-recharge.

4) Apple Pay Services (for the USA): aka longtime USA only services: Apple Cash and Apple Card with the new addition of Apple Pay Later…coming later this year. All of these fall squarely in heavily regulated banking services, so don’t expect them to expand beyond the USA any time soon. The iOS 15.5-ish rebranding of iTunes Pass into Apple Account card, now with Wallet reload in iOS 16, should expand more quickly.

As with all recent iOS releases, the fun features comes later on in the life-cycle. I’ll update this post as with new information as the iOS 16 Apple Pay and Wallet story unfolds. Until then have a happy cashless, er, you know what I mean.

iOS 16 Wallet: expanding the Apple Pay experience, aka Suica auto-charge for the rest of us

iOS 15 added big new features to Wallet, expanding digital keys from cars to include home, office and hotels and ID in Wallet driver licenses for the first time. There were smaller but important UI changes too. A new add card screen offered new categories making is easy to add transit cards regardless of the device region and quickly re-add previous Wallet items from iCloud. iOS 15 was all about Wallet to the extent that Apple now advertises it as a separate thing from Apple Pay with a separate web page, and even referred to Apple Pay as “one of the most important areas of Wallet” in the WWDC keynote. Very interesting.

iOS 16 moves the focus back to Apple Pay and making digital payments more useful, practical and universal. The WWDC22 Keynote announced Apple Pay Later, in-app ID card verification and key sharing. Apple Pay Later is one aspect of several new Apple Pay functions unveiled in the What’s new in Apple Pay and Wallet session.

Multi-merchant payments: In our online world we can never be sure how many sub-merchants are involved when we order something and how our card information is shared. In multi-merchant Apple Pay, multiple payment tokens are issued for each merchant in the same transaction, preserving user privacy, with the iOS 16 Apple Pay paysheet showing a breakdown of each sub-merchant charge. This feature works mostly on the backend, but showcases how smartly the Apple Pay Wallet team design features to ‘just work’ securely for merchants and customers.

Automatic Payments
My favorite iOS 16 feature as it addresses a lot of interesting use cases, much more than just Apple Pay Later installments which fall under:

Reoccurring payments, which include things like installments and subscriptions, basically any regularly scheduled payment. With the recent Starbucks Japan price increases, I decided to sign up for the new JR East Beck’s Coffee Shop subscription plan. Up to 3 cups a day for ¥2,800 a month. A pretty good deal for commuters like me. The Beck’s subscription service is subcontracted out to an interesting online business venture company called Favy that uses Sign in with Apple to create an account. Payment however is manual credit card entry with the onerous, ubiquitous 3D Secure sign-in. Pass issue and serving size selection (M=¥50, L=¥100 extra) is done in Safari. It works well enough, but canceling or getting payment details is a real Safari expedition. It would be a much better, and faster, customer experience doing it all in Apple Pay.

Automatic Reload: this is the real money feature for me because it plays on the classic snag of using Apple Pay Suica…recharge. All pre-paid cards are a catch-22. Japanese users love them because they like the “I know how much money I’m adding to my card” aspect of manual recharge, but there’s the inevitable, you know you forgot about it, bing-bong ‘please recharge’ transit gate alarm when Suica balance is short.

The current incarnation of Apple Pay Suica Auto-Charge is very useful but limited

JR East offers Suica Auto-Charge (auto-reload) as a feature of their VIEW card. The auto-charge option works great with Apple Pay Suica but like all transit card auto-charge, it is tethered to the transit gate NFC system. This means the users gets instant, seamless auto-charge but only on the operator’s transit gates. Suica auto-charge does not work outside of the Suica and PASMO transit gates, not at store terminals, not in other transit card regions like JR West ICOCA. This limitation is a big customer complaint, I and many others would love Apple Pay Suica auto-charge to work everywhere.

Apple Pay automatic reload takes care of this problem very nicely. Suica would recharge anywhere because the card balance ‘trigger’ and reload process is done via Apple Pay and internet connections instead of being tethered to JR East/PASMO transit gates and the Mobile Suica system. JR East could keep auto-charge exclusive to their VIEW cards as they do now but opening it up to all Apple Pay credit cards would greatly increase the usefulness of Suica. JR East could still keep the VIEW advantage with JRE POINT recharge points. Automatic Apple Pay Suica reload would also help alleviate, if not eliminate, the ¥20,000 balance limit problem for most users. The possibilities are are pretty exciting.

Apple Pay order tracking includes QR/barcodes on the Apple Pay sheet, iOS 16 Wallet has a new order tracking icon and dedicated screen

Order tracking
Another very useful feature I think people will love using. The addition of QR/barcodes in the Apple Pay sheet is a first and will greatly shorten the order pickup~delivery process. The best use case of Apple Pay and bar codes that I can think of.

ID verification in apps
This is where ID in Wallet gets real. Wallet app has TSA airport checkpoint verification built-in but that’s not going to help all the government issuing agencies, not to mention software developers, around the world who want to implement digital ID verification to unlock various digital services.

JR East for example has centered their whole Super Suica MaaS Cloud initiative around ID PORT and the ability to match various region or age based services (discounts, special fares, etc.). In other words JR East and their sub-merchant or local government agency want to know where I live and how old I am. This is all provided on the Japanese government My Number digital identity card launching later this year on Android, and Apple Wallet later on. But I don’t want my personal details going everywhere. If the MaaS campaign app or website only needs to know that I live in Tokyo and am over 60, that’s the only info I want to give them. This is what the new PassKit ID request APIs in iOS 16 do: give apps only the information they need to perform a verification for a service and nothing more.

Key sharing
Nothing big here, but it does address one iOS 15 Wallet shortcoming for home, hotel keys which that could not be shared and expanded share options beyond mail and messages. I’m doubtful Apple includes office keys in the bargain but the fine print reads: available on participating car brands and access properties. We’ll find out when iOS 16 ships.

And then there’s Tap to Pay on iPhone. It’s really not an Apple Pay function to me because it turns iPhone into a very handy and portable NFC payment terminal, but it makes sense branding wise. Just say Apple Pay for making…and accepting payments. Anywhere the merchant has their payment provider POS app and a network connection, they are ready to go. This is big. Apple has lined up an impressive number payment providers in a very short time who are happy to leave all the hardware certification and secure element management to Apple and focus on software. I can practically feel the intense interest from Japan where local payment providers would love to leverage the global NFC capable iPhone for seamless EMV and FeliCa payment services. It could be an interesting Apple Pay year.

iOS 16: missing features in Japan (updated)

Any WWDC OS announcement is always a matchup contest of what’s coming for America and what’s missing in other regions like Japan. Let’s take a quick look at what’s coming, what’s not and other quirks on the iOS 16 feature page.

What’s missing

Live Text that actually works for Japanese

Japan finally got Live Text and Visual Lookup. While it’s great that Live Text supports Japanese language, it doesn’t support vertical Japanese text which means there are lots of times when it won’t work. Basically Live Text Japanese is pretty useless without robust vertical text support. And yes it’s depressing to think that iOS and macOS in 2022 still cannot do precise multilingual vertical text selection that QuickDraw GX could do back in 1993.

Maps

It’s weird that Apple is advertising transit cards and low fare balance warnings as a new Maps feature. I guess it’s new when it’s new for America. Apple Maps has had low fare warnings for Suica since the October 2016 iOS 10.1 update. The add new card part is new either but low fare warnings aren’t working in beta 1. Bottom line: there is no new transit functionality such as granular route selection, sorting etc., thought the UI is improved and more compact. Walking directions have also added elevation information. As Japan is missing from the WWDC22 announced list of countries getting New Maps this year (countries like Saudi Arabia that have yet to see an Apple Maps Image Collection van), Japan will continue to be the Apple Maps challenged country. I’m pretty sure Taiwan will get New Maps long before Japan does, if ever.

Apple Pay and Wallet

Apple Pay Later is only for America at this point, ditto for ID in Wallet, both missing and no surprise. Order tracking in Wallet is listed for Japan and also key sharing, though BMW is currently the only company offering a digital key for Wallet. Wallet compatible Home-Office-Hotel digital keys have yet to be announced though there are many digital keys on the market for Android.

Other things

Live Captions, Control Apple Watch with iPhone, Apple News, Weather app minute by minute precipitation are missing. Siri Japanese voice 1, the guy voice, and voice 2 are new and higher quality. Voice 1 sounds more soft and fey to my ear. That’s okay but the previous guy voice was a bit easier to hear outside with ambient noise.

iOS 16 Gallery