Apple was ordered on Wednesday to face a private antitrust lawsuit by payment card issuers accusing the company of thwarting competition for its Apple Pay mobile wallet.
As blatantly anti-competitive as it may be, I don’t want to be in a position where, if I want to pay for something with my phone, I’m forced to use whatever shitty application my bank decides to implement (I’ve had banking applications just decide to stop working for a few days, for no apparent reason; there are banks that have countless applications, each doing something slightly different, with complex, oftentimes downright hostile authentication methods, involving combinations of these apps)
I like the fact that, regardless of card I use, they’re all exposed through the same simple Wallet application, that always works.
For NFC, no one really does that even on Android even though NFC is available for use. Instead, in some countries they use QR-code payments to bypass the NFC limitations that Apple imposed.
The big difference in such a situation is that you have the freedom to choose a different bank if their payment app is bad. You do not currently have the freedom to choose a different payment app on your iPhone. This is the fundamental issue the EU and US are addressing.
Sadly not. Apple explicitly prevents payment apps from using the NFC. It’s blatantly anti-competitive and the DMA will soon open this up in the EU.
Nevermind then. I could’ve sworn I read somewhere that a bank on my country had their own payment system available on the iPhone.
They might use a workaround. QR codes, barcodes, etc. Some banks have done this, but the user experience is poor.
As blatantly anti-competitive as it may be, I don’t want to be in a position where, if I want to pay for something with my phone, I’m forced to use whatever shitty application my bank decides to implement (I’ve had banking applications just decide to stop working for a few days, for no apparent reason; there are banks that have countless applications, each doing something slightly different, with complex, oftentimes downright hostile authentication methods, involving combinations of these apps)
I like the fact that, regardless of card I use, they’re all exposed through the same simple Wallet application, that always works.
For NFC, no one really does that even on Android even though NFC is available for use. Instead, in some countries they use QR-code payments to bypass the NFC limitations that Apple imposed.
I’ve seen that done in Germany, and I was kind of shocked. You could only pay using NFC from the banks’ app.
Man that’s pretty stupid. I’m guessing they don’t use Visa/Mastercard and instead use a proprietary protocol?
The big difference in such a situation is that you have the freedom to choose a different bank if their payment app is bad. You do not currently have the freedom to choose a different payment app on your iPhone. This is the fundamental issue the EU and US are addressing.
I have the freedom to use a different phone at any time. I chose Apple because of a better user experience, better security and privacy