Reece Martin posted an interesting video, So you built the wrong transit system, that examines the American penchant for building cheap light rail systems that don’t make long term sense. Public transit is a waste of money to Americans with money, so cheap is only way to fund and build […]
Apple - Apple Pay + Wallet - Apple Pay Transit - EMV - MIFARE - NFC
OMNY white-label card completes the EMV only OMNY system
After a long gestation, and a COVID related delay, the mighty swipe MetroCard replacement finally shipped. The OMNY card: a white-label EMV bank payment card using the mastercard payment network, not a MIFARE or FeliCa smartcard like San Fransisco Clipper or Tokyo Suica. MetroCard missed the transit smartcard revolution of […]
Apple - Apple Pay Transit - EMV - iPhone - MIFARE - Mobile Payments - NFC - Transit
Dear Jane, we fucked up, sincerely MTA
The piecemeal MTA OMNY rollout is a lesson how not to do a transition from old system to new system. A case where poor design, poor management choices and unanticipated user interaction, each insignificant in isolation, snowball into a nagging long term problem. The problem goes like this: (1) Apple […]
Apple - Apple Pay + Wallet - Apple Pay Transit - EMV - NFC - Transit
Why is MTA OMNY asking Apple to fix Face ID?
MTA is asking Apple to fix Face ID. We all know that using Face ID with face masks sucks but the MTA situation is special. It’s a perfect storm of 2 separate issues, the Face ID with face mask problem and the OMNY rollout problem combined in a COVID crucible. […]
Apple - Apple Pay + Wallet - Apple Pay Transit - EMV - MIFARE - Mobile Payments - NFC - Transit
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 […]