I kind of don’t get the point 
I do the FaceID thing a few steps before the barrier and I’m straight through. I don’t like the idea of someone stealing my phone and being able to zoom around London on my money until I can find a way to mark the phone as lost (might take an hour or two without a phone to hand anymore!), Maybe I’ve missed something 
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I’m not in London very much (thankfully) but when I have been, my own experiences and anecdotally people I have seen too have not been positive on the use of Apple Pay or their watch for Underground.
Inevitably, there are mutterings of “tosser” or similar when things don’t work.
TLDR - not seem anyone else use it successfully and not been able to use it myself in a smooth way so I will stick with the physical card 
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Honestly it’s more about holding up the queue than using your phone or watch to pay - people tut when your card doesn’t let you flash too. People are always so used to tapping and going straight through very quickly, it’s a hassle when someone in-front of you holds up the queue.
I use my Apple Watch on the tube allll the time. Never had a tut and have never held up the queue My paper overground ticket is more temperamental for example:
“I’VE BEEN NEAR A MOBILE PHONE AND NOW I AM BLAAAAAAANK AHAHAHAHA SURPRISE” or
“This barrier’s paper ticket slot is broken but we haven’t told you. Please try again. NOPE” 
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Not having to do anything with the watch to tap in and out is one of the things raised when people ask for Samsung Pay, as that will let you pay up to £30 without authorisation. Not sure it’ll make that much of a difference, but reducing how often I have to fiddle with Face ID will be nice.
I have this enabled for my Chinese transit card.
You don’t need to unlock your phone, provide Touch/FaceID. Your battery doesn’t even need to be charged, it’s great.
You just hold your phone on the reader and it works seamlessly.
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I wonder what the response time will be between:
- Double tab, authorising, ready, go through the barrier
- Authorising, ready, go through the barrier
As mentioned you can pre-authorise before you get to the barrier as in point 1. So maybe the new version will be slower? Interested to hear how it works in reality but a welcome addition to mobile payments.
There’s 0 ‘get ready’ time - it seemingly works instantly. If it’s not instant, it’s pretty close that you can’t tell. This is the same in other places that have Express Transit enabled.
They’ve recently added the heading ‘Travel Cards’ though so perhaps that’s a sign it’s coming to standard bank cards with TfL.
Does that mean the phone or watch is in ‘ready’ mode all the time using the new Transit? Wouldn’t this cause serious battery drain if so?
It seems that’s not the case, because there’s no noticeable drain. It perhaps detects the type of reader because if you hold it near a normal card machine it still automatically brings up your default payment card not the transit card.
One thing Apple did have to sort out though was that some people use another transit card app which uses QR codes to enter (the readers have QR scanners too as well as NFC) and Wallet would automatically spring up when holding your phone over if you wanted to use the QR code so it seems they’ve given the ability to disable NFC detection to some apps as it works fine now.
Interestingly you can choose custom transit card designs for your card in Apple Wallet too.
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True but I’ve not had or seen directly in front of me a physical card failing - as mentioned, I don’t use the tube much so my experience is limited here.
Nevertheless, I’m interested in how things will move forward here.
That’s something which has interested me, though it’s something I’d probably never use - I’m hardly ever in London. The transit system I use more regularly doesn’t have barriers let alone needing to touch a card anywhere - and I’ve only had my ticket (on mobile) checked once! 
No. It doesn’t drain the battery, if anything it can also be used even if your phone is out of battery.
Wow that’s amazing!
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It will be when TFL enables it
I shall be going home in June so I look forward to trying it then (if it’s enabled)
Is it not enabled yet?
I will try on TfL at 16:18
The options is in the latest iOS update for both the phone and Apple Watch. But no TFL doesn’t support it yet. Tried today, it just brings up the option to trigger Apple Pay.
I just use my kerv (now k-ring), still gets interested looks as I knock on the reader and the gates open!