Could Android/Apple Pay be sidestepped?

If you have a Samsung it seems better integrated and easier to use on public transport networks and some Smartwatches only work with Samsung Pay not Android Pay

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and to quote myself:

Samsung Pay will work on the Tube with your phone switched off or battery flat but Android Pay needs phone turned on and a charged battery

Thanks for the clarification, that’s unfortunate that Samsung hasn’t gone Android on the watches.

Explain the ‘easier to use on public transport’? That’s one benefit of Android Pay over Apple Pay in the UK they allow No CVM (£30 limit) without unlocking the phone, specifically to allow for things like public transport. Whereas Apple Pay always required you go through the CDCVM steps.

That doesn’t make any sense, there’s just no way it would work turned off.

Apple Pay (or US Android Pay) I get since the CDCVM step of unlocking the phone needs to be complete. But no CVM of up to ÂŁ30 (like a contactless card) is allowed with just waking it up (lighting the screen).

How? I mean, that just doesn’t make sense. It works in Japan with FeliCa phones but only because FeliCa is basically using a re-writable card, not card emulation.

That was what Samsung told me, that it works with phone Switched Off! Though as I have an Oyster card I have not tested that myself. Also some watches may work with Android Pay it is the Gear watch that doesn’t.

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I’m not really believing it, based on what I know about how Samsung Pay works - but maybe I’m wrong and they are doing some type of rewriting a built-in card like FeliCa phones do? Can anyone confirm/deny this? Screen off is what I think they meant…

Ahhh Samsung Pay… what a pointless exercise by Samsung who want control of everything.

Let’s have one Universal Payment method on Android… No wait, Barclays, Samsung, the rest of them all want their own. What a pointless exercise. This is one of those times that Apple forcing it is actually for the greater good - one simple Apple Pay that works across their ecosystem on iPhones, iPads, Mac’s and Apple Watches.

Samsung blocked Android Pay on their own watches? Thank god for choice of others that support the underlying OS card payment system.

Glad Monzo isnt following this rubbish and sticking to universal one for the formats in question. Android Pay and Apple Pay is all we need.

Now just the waiting for Apple Pay announcement please :roll_eyes:

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You are right…they have now edited their page from “phone on” to “phone screen on” :slight_smile: someone obviously spotted it

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To be fair, in the US market, they have one huge advantage - magnetic stripe transmission (or as they now insist on calling it, magnetic secure transmission, presumably to try and re-assure people that transmitting a magnetic stripe isn’t quite as bad of an idea as it sounds like). This uses electromagnetic induction to transmit a magnetic stripe track directly to the read heads of a terminal. It works with most terminals (not all, as some want both track 1 and 2 data).

It gets around the fact that for various reasons, many US stores disable contactless (Walmart, Target, etc) or just don’t have contactless hardware. It isn’t perfect, and it also won’t work places like CVS that enable contactless then put up a ‘contactless not allowed’ message when you attempt to use it. Since contactless is faster, and more reliable when it works, Samsung Pay will only send a magnetic stripe if contactless isn’t available.

Makes much more sense. I was 99% sure they were using a standard NFC chip to accomplish this, and thus it was impossible to work with the phone off!

So, Samsung Pay just needs tapped. Android Pay (UK, US market is different) needs tapped with the phone woken up (but not unlocked, which is key in winter if wearing gloves). Apple Pay needs a fingerprint or PIN specifically for Apple Pay each time (face on X).

Samsung Pay vs Android Pay I can see no difference. Clumsily hitting the power button with a gloved hand takes a fraction of a second and is a natural move when tapping a reader. Apple Pay is definitely the clear worst experience for UK public transit though (they do have a public transit mode for FeliCa in Japan, but even that isn’t as flexible as most FeliCa phones, it still requires the phone to be on).

The difference to me is I can use it on my Samsung Gear watch (not tried Fitbit Pay on my FitBit yet)

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Sorry, I specifically meant in the UK public transport experience. I should have been more clear :slight_smile:

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I have both installed. Android Pay for phone payments, (set as default) because it’s better and has more support in apps. Then Samsung Pay solely for use on my Gear S3 watch.

Monzo definitely should not build their own solution.

It was so annoying before Amex UK supported Android Pay. They built their own NFC payment system into their app. So then I had to set it to the, ‘default, unless another payment app is open’, setting. If I went somewhere that didn’t take Amex then I had to unlock my phone and actually open the Android Pay app - so awkward.

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Shame it didnt stay US only :zipper_mouth_face:

There is a downside to this though, and it’s all about changing habits. Do you remember when contactless first came out in the UK (and at the time, London first by a year or two)?

The fear, the stories, the scaremongering. Everyone was panicking and it took a while for that misconception to stop.

Now a good number of years later, its second nature to everyone in the UK. Infact I now get annoyed when someone asks me to put my card in a reader and enter my pin when its a small transaction.

The downside to what Samsung did their is that they are supporting old ideas and not pushing the future forward. If Android Pay and Apple Pay were the only mobile methods, and only did it via NFC it helps force a standard out to people and slowly people adjust. Then over time it becomes second nature. If anything all Samsung have done is let people and businesses continue this old style of working and prolong its life. Stores won’t update to NFC because they can get away with the old standard as Samsung made a work around instead of forcing retailers to move with times.

But that’s a whole different topic/debate, I wont hijack the thread further :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:
The fundamental point I was trying to really focus on, is having twenty different apps/standards for Android NFC payments is just annoying. It’s one of the many areas of fragmentation that really winds me up on Android and serves no purpose. Samsung just wanted the very small % of the transaction value instead of it going to Google - that’s the fundamental reason they, like Barclays, forced another standard out there, not for the consumers benefit.

Samsung with the forcing Samsung Pay only on their watch is just another example of anti-consumer practice. Why not ‘be open’ as Android users proclaim is the benefit and let the actual standard for Android on the watch to.

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I disagree. I think Google need competition and glad to see the EU taking action against Google bloatware in Android in the same way they tackled Microsoft over preloading Internet Explorer in Windows.

Anyhow I will shut up now as we are digressing from the thread theme

Wasn’t it Samsung getting in trouble for bloatware? The pure Google Android experience is lite…

On a side note, your disagreement means you can continue to enjoy your Samsung Watch thingy without Monzo as a side effect of Samsung’s business desires.

Unfortunately, the US situation is more complex. Shops are rolling out contactless hardware and deliberately not supporting it to push their agenda. CVS supported it until Apple Pay came out, then the next day they added a ‘contactless not allowed’ message when anyone attempted to pay by contactless, still there to this day.

See, some large American shops hate the card networks, far more than here (possibly because interchange is a lot higher), and they’re trying to push their own QR code payment services like Walmart Pay and CVS Pay (yes, those are real things, like Tesco is doing here). They even tried working together, in something called MCX, but that failed miserably.

So yes, Americans can be paranoid like people here were. But the UK never had the anti-contactless sentiment from shops. Thus, Samsung’s cheeky, but effective, workaround.

Now, overall, I agree with you. Android Pay should be where it is at. Thankfully, market forces seem to be doing a good job of that. We have enough competition to just quit using banks like Barclays that push inferior alternatives.

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Sounds painful, but interesting. We could say maybe Trump will sort it out but we know how that will turn out :drooling_face:

Maybe if/when Monzo launch in the US, they could throw an interesting dynamic into the mix as it sounds like the lack of protections on American capitalism isn’t doing anyone favours with card payments over there and someone needs to break the current broken model fast in the interest of consumers.
Your summary does explain to me why Apple Pay adoption when it launched in the UK very quickly outgrew America’s usage even with their much bigger potential marketshare.

I saw Tesco’s Pay for the first time the other day when i went in there, read the sign about it and was immediately turned off by the idea. But i suspect for them, they will keep offering incentives to try and push people on it.

I’m gonna be one of those stubborn people who flat out refuse, I dont want 20 apps for every different store I use to pay for goods :scream:

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They didn’t block Android pay. Their newer smart watches run Tizen, not Android, and Android Pay only supports Android.

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