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Apple Locks iPhone 6/6+ NFC To Apple Pay Only
Ronin Developer writes From the Cnet article: "At last week's Apple event, the company announced Apple Pay — a new mobile payments service that utilizes NFC technology in conjunction with its Touch ID fingerprint scanner for secure payments that can be made from the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus or Apple Watch. Apple also announced a number of retailers that would accept Apple Pay for mobile payments at launch. However, Cult of Mac reports that NFC will be locked to the Apple Pay platform, meaning the technology will not be available for other uses. An Apple spokesperson confirmed the lock down of the technology, saying developers would be restricted from utilizing its NFC chip functionality for at least a year. Apple declined to comment on whether NFC capability would remain off limits beyond that period." So, it would appear, for at least a year, that Apple doesn't want competing mobile payment options to be available on the newly released iPhone 6 and 6+. While it's understandable that they want to promote their payment scheme and achieve a critical mass for Apple Pay, it's a strategy that may very well backfire as other other mobile payment vendors gain strength on competing platforms.
NFC for other uses made available through jailbreak in 3..., 2..., 1...
NFC technologies are already very well established here (you can wave your phone in front of a vending machine to purchase a drink!), and it's disappointing to see that iPhone users have at least a year to catch up with everybody else.
The mobile payment market is completely fragmented. Apple is by far not the first company to announce a payment scheme, however it is the first that has managed to make some concrete deals with several companies and it's the first that actually has a chance at taking off.
Apple has locked it down? So what? How is that any different from the last several years where competitors have had NFC and payment support? Why is the upcoming year suddenly going to backfire them right at a time where service providers will likely be questioning whether it's a good idea to promote a system which can't be used on Apple's much advertised phone?
I'm no fan of Apple, but you can't argue that they aren't strategically clever bastards.
Considering Republicans are so against NFC and haven't allowed any bank to invest in this technology
Really?
Interesting! Not too surprising either; Japan is often on the leading edge of technologies like that.
Of course, NFC has got other uses, too. I've seen restaurants with NFC "Tap your phone here to leave feedback about your dining experience" stickers, businesses and hotels with "tap here to call a cab" stickers, smartphone car kits which automatically launch the navigation app when you insert your phone, and all manner of other such things... in the US and Europe. They aren't widespread yet, but they exist. Then there's stuff like the whole "tap-to-send" for inter-device file transfer that Samsung has been advertising for years.
NFC is a lot more than *just* payments... though it definitely does those, too.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
NFC has taken off in Aus in a big way. With most retail outlets having terminals that take Paypass/Tap&Go ( NFC payment brand names here ) accepted across competing financial institutions. There is zero chance Apple will make any headway here asking retailers to forgo the already established infrastructure. Also basically asking retailers to stump up money to install another payment network. Given the existing network was no additional cost to them. Apple is making a mistake here. I don't think it will hurt them too much but Apple Pay will certainly not be a reason for market share growth of the platform. The larger screens most certainly will give them some growth but not this ridiculous shackle.
Apple does realize that NFC isn't only used for payment systems, right? My camera can transfer pictures to a smart phone using NFC. It allows you to take high quality pictures of something and then post them straight to whatever social media you're using without going through a computer. It's a really nice feature when you're wandering around someplace photogenic and don't want to be limited to a cellphone camera.
Oh, right, Apple declared proper digital cameras "dead" in their iPhone 6 keynote. I guess that feature will never make it to iOS then.
Not to mention other types of data transfer that's possible with NFC like easily sharing contact information or things like that.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Well yes, but when you have several devices, the easy pairing is rather nice feature. And no, it's not 'whatever form of NFC', the payment video had a standard NFC capable reader.
"NFC offers a low-speed connection with extremely simple setup, and can be used to bootstrap more capable wireless connections." See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...
It is what it is.
While the NFC services would be restricted to Apple Pay, does this also mean that general NFC scanners won't be able to 'see' them? I use tags with this now https://www.adafruit.com/produ... but was hoping that the watch / phone would be visible too.
The IRS is the one organization that you don't want to fuck with. Remember, these are the guys who took down Al Capone.
The same basic information came out on Ars Technica the other day. But the slant on that was not that Apple was locking out 3rd party credit card processors, but rather that the NFC hardware was not being used for anything else because Apple was not ready to say the whole stack was perfect yet, from a security standpoint. This is all new code and new hardware, for Apple, and they would rather not have stories about massive credit card theft come out next week. So, this is an example of slant driving angry diatribes in the comments; if it'd been presented in a more neutral tone people would have judged Apple's actions in a more balance way.
I've been a long time iPhone user (every model since it's inception) and I have liked all those phones a lot. I've made some apps and have made myself completely tied down to the platform by spending money on apps and music. This NFC-thing is kind of like magic. I have a friend with that capability on his phone and it seems to me that this NFC-thing is a complete no-brainer in terms of interconnecting devices. I was actually waiting for the moment that Apple finally introduced this NXP-chip into the iPhone. Apple want to restrict the use of the chip to ApplePay? Guess what: In the country where I live - there is already an NFC-infrastructure and the banks have apps that use it - just not on iOS. What to do? Should I ditch the whole Apple universe and go for a Linux-phone and at the same time leave my wallet at home. Yeah. I think I might just do that. One year of waiting for Apple to "maybe" get their shit together and realize that the world is larger than the US; that's a long time for something that's been around for years now. Bye bye Apple. It's been good. iOS is the best OS and the iPhone is catching up. But this is it for me. I want that wallet-killer right now - not "when Apple decides that it has enough monopoly in the US to maybe open it up for other actors".
They had to do this, or otherwise Apple Pay would have been DOA, since competitors could have just made their already established solutions available on the phone. This strategy will surely fail in places where iphone market share is low and/or NFC payment options are already widely used, i.e. basically everywhere except for North America.
There are similar apps all over the place. It's only in america that this thing hasn't already started. Sure they want to make it secure. But they could still sell their ApplePay as a "premium unhackable product" and allow other actors to use the chip for other purposes. Their approach is great for Apple in the US. But for the consumers it just means another level of lockin. The rest of the world; well they just got one more reason for buying something else.
But they're still selling more phones than ever before. Their share of the market has dropped, but the market has got bigger
Whole my life as apple customer I had to suffer from apple control freak maniacal obsession with limitations. Crippled bluetooth, jail of itunes, internal access limits, etc. NFC is already late for two years and even not usable for me(NFC tags and readers). The limitation of NFS is the final straw for me. Goodbye apple , I will buy Sony Xperia Z2 instead.
I got a Z a year and a bit ago and really regret it. If you want the Z2 cool, but make sure you want it.
On topic though my z has a nfc chip just stuck to the outside under the camera. It looks tacky and cheap. I made sure it was off when I first got it and have no cause or desire to even wonder if it would work for anything. In hindsight I should've peeled it off and flicked it in the bin before putting the protective stickers over the top. For me, the fewer things that can access my bank account or authorise payments the better.
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Any day now... Apple will dry up and blow away. It's getting near impossible to even find an iPhone! And NOBODY is buying one and the company stock is collapsing at this moment.
I don't know who is the bigger idiot: The deluded apple fanboy or, the pathelogical apple hater.
Is this an opinion or some kind of poem?
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Steve Wozniak tells TMZ reporter that he wants tap to pay also,,, http://www.tmz.com/2014/09/17/...
You need an open platform that emulates a card that everyone accepts. Google Wallet works EVERYWHERE, because it just emulates a Visa card. You can use it at ANY Paypass or Paywave terminal regardless of if it says Google Wallet on it.
The only need to make "deals" is if you want to take a cut of the transaction to increase your bottom line. Google tried that, failed, and changed Wallet so that it is totally open.
What asshole would trust Apple as a wallet?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Yep pretty you will need an additional battery to use it, and maybe an external keyboard... and hell why not an even bigger screen... and hey did you hear laptops are making a come back....
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
If Apple proceeds with locking away the NFC API from developers they will be making a Huge mistake. NFC is not just for payments, it is a use agnostic technology, and as such can be used anywhere you need short (1-2") data communications i.e.
# Door locks / home security
# Wifi tap to secure.
# Bluetooth Pairing
# End to end encrypted messaging tap to exchange / sign public keys
# Second factor online authentication
etc etc.
On Android all these uses are available because the API is open.
How many companies make android phones? how many have to compete to make the best?
And you've hit one of the biggest problems with this system on Android. Unless you're in one of the countries which supports Google Wallet your ability to use this system will depend on which company made which deal with which financial institution and offered the fruits on which model.
Open platforms are like standards, there are so many to chose from, all similar yet incompatible and none of them really do what you want.
Spoiler alert: Nobody gives a shit about your crappy Android or Linux platforms.
isis is a regional problem. "the world" and america in particular face no terror threat from isis.
I would say you have it right.
Apple initially didn't open up the iPhone to Apps at all because Steve was deathly afraid of building another Newton.
Then they wanted to open them up, but there was not rational set of APIs, there was just an internal morass, because it had never been designed with the idea of hardening one app on the iPhone from interference by another app on the phone, or hardening the phones functions against a malicious app.
This is a single App on a single use, incomplete, API, one which was built only to host this App and nothing else. Could that API be exposed, and used for other applications? Yeah. Would that enable all possible NFC applications which you might want to implement in the future? Not a chance in hell.
This is just Apple wanting some bake time so that they can rationally support an API that they happily demonstrated opening hotel doors and other things which they are not prepared to open up at this point in time.
As if they would EVER allow anyone else to use NFC while they are growing a new walled garden/money spinner.
What is most interesting is that the poster you replied to does not seem to realize that Republicans have not been in a position to stop banks from doing such things for almost six years now.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
But they're still selling more phones than ever before. Their share of the market has dropped, but the market has got bigger
...and it is amazing how hard it is for some people to understand the difference between losing market share in a saturated market and your market share growing slower than a still expanding market. In percentages your market share may be declining even though your sales are still growing. Apple's iPhone line has been uninspiring since the iPhone 5 came out so sales growth was also less than what it might have been. I for one skipped the iPhone 5 because I felt it didn't represent a sufficient upgrade over my iPhone 4S but the iPhone 6/6+ is a whole different story. I'm not going to write Apple stock off as an investment option because the pontifications of a few angry Android users on slashdot or some tech analyst's totally unrealistic predictions of Apple achieving world domination on the smartphone market haven't come true.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
NFC has never caught on being freely available. It won't be adopted with even tighter restrictions. Sorry by NFC is a failure that was never articulated honestly or clearly, never implemented widely and so we don't know how or if it will work or what happens when it goes wrong.
And all of this right after they proved their amazing focus on security with the icloud hack...and the fingerprint reader that didn't work worth a crap...and the announcement of dozens of security flaws in iOS8...and their gotofail SSL flaw in iOS7 and on and on and on.
Nobody wants NFC and nobody wants their kids paying for things with their iphones. You'd think the multi-million dollar lawsuit about kids making purchases on their iphones might have hinted at that. This is a disaster. It's like a glaring reason to not buy an iphone.
And I mean complete ass of Europe countries like Poland. We have been paying with our phones for _two years_ now.
Welcome to two years ago America.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
Market share isn't growing slower; it's declining.
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If the NFC communications were LOUD and NOISY when someone attempts to NFC you in a crowd the LOUD noise would alert the abused to the attempt. This would probably cut down on the number and frequency of attempted thefts a lot!
...and it is amazing how hard it is for some people to understand the difference between losing market share in a saturated market and your market share growing slower than a still expanding market. In percentages your market share may be declining even though your sales are still growing.
Uh, the definition of "market share" is the percentage of the whole, no matter the size of the market. If the percentage is going down, then by definition they are losing market share, even if raw sales numbers are increasing.
Whether the most important number is market share, raw sales number, amount of profit, or something else, that depends on who you ask.
Do you think there is any chance that NFC might allow micropayments on the Web to become a reality? I don't like what the ad-driven Web has become, and I'm allergic to auto-recurring subscriptions.
I still prefer iOS.
Lots of old people do.
Actually the strongest correlation in the US is with zip code not age. The more income a neighborhood has the more iOS users, the less income the more Android users. Developer data seems to support this hypothesis. 4+ times the revenue per download on iOS compared to Android.
Bluetooth is only for music and hot spot sharing. You mean wifi?
WHAT? Bluetooth is a full data sharing protocol. You can send files across it. Why do you think Bluetooth only does what you describe?
Good-bye
I actually like the Sony NFC nub. I have one on my a6000 camera. What is it you dont like about the Z2? The Z3 has some features im interested in (multi wifi camera control) but i would love to hear your take on the Z2.
Good-bye
cuz that's the only options to do with it. I can connect my phone to my car stereo for phone calls, to my speakers in my office, or I can use the phone to set up a cell phone data bridge. you must be thinking of something else.
So it's nearly identical to all other secure payment systems on the market. You still have the payment processor is the bank - who is a VISA/MC/AMEX 3rd party vendor who tracks and sells your information - instead of a non-bank corporate VISA/MC/AMEX 3rd party vendor who tracks and sells your information. No other secure system uses your CC, expiration date, or CVV code as part of a transaction either - not your smart-chip credit card, not google wallet, not the wireless providers.
The only difference here is that there is that Apple isn't privy to your transaction data at the register - though the merchant, the bank, and VISA/MC/AMEX still are. That and they have you transmit a photo of your credit card (and photos are unhackable, just ask the stars who took nude selfies) instead putting the onerous task of entering twenty two digits *all by yourself* into another payment processor's web/app form. I mean, that's 15 seconds you'll never get back.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Or it was a typo, considering that he was talking about NFC, a 1-char difference.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
...The only difference here is that there is that Apple isn't privy to your transaction data at the register - though the merchant, the bank, and VISA/MC/AMEX still are.
1. The fact that Apple isn't privy to the transaction is a significant and unique difference, data-mining-wise.
2. Please tell me how the merchant, your Bank, and the CC company can somehow conduct a transaction without the details.
That and they have you transmit a photo of your credit card (and photos are unhackable, just ask the stars who took nude selfies) instead putting the onerous task of entering twenty two digits *all by yourself* into another payment processor's web/app form. I mean, that's 15 seconds you'll never get back.
1. The picture of the card, if it is even sent to your bank, is done once, and I would guarantee it is encrypted as part of their Proprietary Setup Protocol, and is only used to establish that you actually have the card in your hand. I assume this procedure actually setup up some Public Key stuff.
2. The picture of the card may actually just be used by software in the phone itself, and again, just for the purposes of one-time Setup.
3.. Oh wait. Here's the answer. Your card-photo is obviously simply used by the phone to do OCR so users that wish can avoid having to type (Dyslexics and others do exist, and do have problems with long, unbroken strings of characters, you insensitive clod. But, as you can see from the freely-available information that you chose to ignore (that took me exactly 2 seconds to Google), you are free to spend the 15 seconds if you don't trust your own phone to do a little OCR (on an OCR font, BTW).
. The Apple-Hate runs strong in this one...
You're missing the point of using NFC for those things the other radios do better. It's not that you actually use NFC for it, but that you use NFC to bootstrap the process of using those other radios (e.g. exchange configurations and credentials), then use those other radios just like iOS does.
One example: Parrot Zik Headphones. They use NFC to identify devices and automatically switch to the correct configuration and connect to the correct Bluetooth device. NFC isn't used for the actual audio transmission, in part because it's too slow, in part because the range is too short, but mostly because the people who designed it aren't idiots and already knew about the other two factors.
Incidentally, Samsung's NFC file transfer uses wi-fi or bluetooth for the actual file transfer. If both devices are on the same wi-fi network and can discover each other, that connection is used; if neither is connected to wi-fi, an ad-hoc wi-fi connection is used; if the devices are on different networks, only one is on wi-fi, or they're on the same network but can't discover each other, bluetooth is used as a fallback. What makes you think anyone in their right mind would develop a file transfer system that requires 2 people to hold their devices in contact and nearly completely still for the duration of a file transfer effectively capped at 300kbps after accounting for protocol overhead and radio interference?
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
You may be mistaking what you use it for with what it is capable of. You can send any arbitrary information over it, as long as an application on both ends understands what you are doing. I believe that Apple devices may impose additional restrictions on what you can pair with (I know that I use Bluetooth to connect to a $5 OBD-II reader in my car, but that my friends with iPhones are unable to make this pairing and have to use the $15 WiFi version).
Maybe take a look at this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
Bluetooth can absolutely do file transfers, and most (all?) Android phones have that functionality built-in. Many older dumbphones (without wifi) did too. Perhaps you're using an iPhone? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
This is not news at all. They are EXPECTED to do this. It's what they did with Bluetooth also - you cannot transfer files, photos, mp3s via Bluetooth because of their misplaced sense of copyright protection....meh!
Yeahrightsure.
That's why they have a "Share" button in nearly every (probably actually IS every) App.
And besides, Bluetooth was never intended to be a mass-data-transfer protocol. It was essentially intended to be the RF version of IrDA. Apple has the "Share" button (which allows several methods of data-transfer) and AirDrop for the uses you mention for Bluetooth.
And also, in iOS 8 and OS X 10.10, there are signs that the Post-Jobs-Apple is loosening the reigns a bit. Is it wonderful yet? Meh. But, keep in mind that this is only the beginning.
I don't understand androids. I prefer knowing the scope of everything I can do, and doing those things. I don't like these "anything under the sun" pones because that's how the hackers get you. before you know it, they're hacking your Bluetooth with NFC and then making a wifi to infect your root.
I want it for external encryption, with my Yubikey Neo. Until that works, I'm unlikely to upgrade from my 4S.
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It's their lifeblood.
It's just the regular Z I have and it's not that there's anything particularly wrong with it, it just didn't hold up as well as it's competitors. Probably the thing that annoys me the most that I can put my finger on is the speakers are not very loud at all, considerably quitter than an s4 even with xloud on. The Walkman software is another underwhelming feature which I was disappointed with. Overall I'd just say do more research than I did (which wasn't much) I did get it in purple though so that's pretty cool but I still wish I'd got a HTC One.
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Whoa! You mean Apple made a technology on one of their devices *proprietary*??!?!??!?!??!
HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS WHY ISN'T THIS A HEADLINE AROUND THE WORLD? /sarcasm
----
"I used to listen to Null Device before they sold out."
DId it ever occur to you that you can have both? I run a fully stock apple phone AND 'anything under the sun' phones and tablets. Just because YOU fear choice doesnt mean it shouldn't be offered.
Good-bye
Just because YOU fear choice doesnt mean it shouldn't be offered.
I respectfully disagree. think of it in terms of vaccinations. The purpose of a vaccination program is to reduce the potential vectors for disease spreading. if some people don't get vaccinated they become a risk to others. it's kind of like insecure phones like androids. it opens up a vector that puts me at risk because it is potential access to hackers. how long before an android phone is exploited to gain access to bofa or home depot? then we all lose because somebody made a poor phone decision.
You are silly, have silly ideas and i dont say this often, but you really have no place here on Slashdot with this kind of thinking. It is anathema to what we do here.
Good-bye
You are silly, have silly ideas and i dont say this often, but you really have no place here on Slashdot with this kind of thinking. It is anathema to what we do here.
I'm not sure what to make of this. I agree we were having a silly argument. but I don't see how you can say that there's no place on Slashdot for silly arguments, and it harshes my buzz for you to say that my contributions have not place in "your" Slashdot. its as much mine as yours. it's not like I'm the HOSTS guy or the GNAA guy. I have excellent karma and regularly get +5 comment ratings. so I think my contributions are appreciated.
Do you have any advice on how I can be a better Slashdot community member? I think we should build a space where people are open to discuss different perspectives, and sometimes have silly arguments. just remember, it takes two to have a silly argument.
Fair enough. Stop saying choice is inherently a bad thing. Security is the search for the place between usability and safety. You cant have perfect security, you cant have perfect usability. Its always a compromise. Dont try to tell people they cant have usability in your search for perfect security. Applying 'herd mentality' logic to all computers isnt going to win you many friends here , the idea being you should secure your own stuff not kill choice so you feel safe.
Good-bye