Sometimes it takes Apple support pages a while to acknowledge the current reality of iOS. iOS 15 Wallet brought ‘region free’ transit cards with an improved UI so that allowed Apple Pay users from anywhere to add transit cards directly in Wallet. Apple support document HT207155 “Add a Suica or […]
The Apple Pay monopoly debate part 1: context is everything
John Gruber did everyone a favor outlining some of the stakes at play in the remarkably glib, “Remarks by Executive Vice-President Vestager on the Statement of Objections sent to Apple over practices regarding Apple Pay.” The objections are annoyingly vague and refuse to specify how Apple Pay stifled competition and […]
Super Suica Cloud
A Japanese friend once told me that when Suica first came out, young people in Tokyo sent Suica cards to hometown families to use for coming to Tokyo. But parents and grandparents sent them back saying, “we can’t use them,” even when they could use them in their local area. […]
Rakuten Mini and me
I love shaggy dog stories, let me rephrase that, I love shaggy dog contactless payment user stories. Sutapa Saito’s Rakuten Mini saga is a fun read that covers the short 2 year life of his Rakuten Mini smart device. Rakuten called it a smartphone but as Saito san points out, […]
Mobile FeliCa evolution: FeliCa without the FeliCa chip
Mobile FeliCa is a Java Card applet on a secure element (SE). If the right applet is present with the right keys, and the CLF (contactless front-end) is configured to route Type F frames to the SE, you can enable Mobile FeliCa on any SE. FeliCa Dude FeliCa Dude did […]