Update - Jul 11: Octopus Cards Limited has now confirmed that customers will be able to use their Octopus cards on their iPhone or Apple Watch for transit and retail payment with Apple Pay later this year. Original story below.
(Hong Kong,11 Jul 2019) Octopus Cards Limited is excited to announce that customers will be able to use their Octopus on their iPhone or Apple Watch for transit and retail payment with Apple Pay later this year. More details will be shared soon. @MacRumors@9to5mac@appleinsiderpic.twitter.com/e2wurzcKgs
— ST (@TWaIIk) July 11, 2019
iOS 13 may come with built-in support for Hong Kong's Octopus contactless payment system, if a few lines of code discovered on Apple's servers are any indication.
Tech blog Ata Distance spotted the code snippet in Apple's online JSON-based Apple Pay pass identifier (link now removed), which shows references to Octopus in iOS 13.
The discovery also tallies with specific references to Octopus on Apple Pay in the iOS 13 beta, according to the Japan-focused site.
Octopus is based on the same FeliCa NFC standard used for the Japanese Suica card, and is used by the vast majority of Hong Kong residents for making transit payments and retail transactions.
Originally launched in 1997 as a physical contactless card, the FeliCa-based version made the transition to electronic payment solution when the company unveiled Smart Octopus for Samsung Pay in December 2017.
The exclusive deal with Samsung left Apple Pay users without a way to take advantage Smart Octopus, despite it being technically compatible with iPhone 7 and later models, so today's find should make for good news for those hoping to digitize the popular transit and retail payment card, which should also support Apple's Express Transit mode.
iOS 13 for iPhone is expected to be released in the fall.
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...
We're officially in the month of Black Friday, which will take place on Friday, November 29 in 2024. As always, this will be the best time of the year to shop for great deals, including popular Apple products like AirPods, iPad, Apple Watch, and more.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment,...
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The first Geekbench 6 benchmark results for the M4 Pro chip surfaced today. Impressively, the results that are available so far show that the highest-end M4 Pro chip is faster than the highest-end M2 Ultra chip in terms of peak multi-core CPU performance.
Here is a comparison of the results:
Mac mini with M4 Pro (14-core CPU): 22,094 multi-core score (average of 11 results)
Mac Studio...
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The iPhone SE 4 that's set to come out early next year is expected to debut Apple's first in-house 5G modem, according to Jeff Pu, an analyst who covers companies within Apple's supply chain.
In a research note this week with Hong Kong-based investment firm Haitong International Securities, Pu said Apple is expected to roll out its custom-made 5G modem starting with the next-generation...
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With the second beta of iOS 18.2 that's available for developers today, Apple has further fleshed out the ChatGPT integration that's available with Siri. In the Settings app, there's now a section that shows the ChatGPT daily limit, and offers an option to upgrade to the paid ChatGPT Plus plan.
The beta includes an Advanced Capabilities section with a "Daily Limit" reading that shows up as...
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Apple's new M4 Pro and M4 Max chips are impressively fast in terms of CPU performance, topping the M2 Ultra, but what about graphics performance?
The first Geekbench 6 results for GPU performance are now available for the M4 Pro and M4 Max, and the Metal scores reveal some impressive year-over-year gains. Based on the Metal scores that are available so far, the M4 Pro and M4 Max are up to...
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After a busy October in which Apple announced new Macs and Apple Intelligence launched, the calendar has now turned to November. Below, we outline what to expect from Apple this month as the slower-but-still-busy holiday season approaches.
After seeding the first betas of iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2 with additional Apple Intelligence features last month, Apple will likely...
Pretty much just download the WeChat (you can’t find a person without WeChat on their phone). If you ever shop on Taobao, you will need Alipay anyway.
Most of these apps are preinstalled on phone anyway. There is no hunting for the app. After two or three tries, it will become second nature.
If you living in a big city, I guess you can find a POS machine. If you living in a small town, like where I am living, there are lots of places doesn’t even have any POS machines.
I also need to mention that, even if you go with cashless, you need carrying you wallet anyway. Highly likely you gonna walk in a store that does’t accept taps. Even with tap, there is hard limit on transactions ($100 in Canada).
With QR code, all I need is my phone. No wallet, no nothing
Your statement is correct in Mainland China. But Hong Kong is a special administrative region. Octopus card has been well established in HK for twenty years. All public transit and many local businesses accept Octopus card. There are more places accepting Octopus than QR code payment in HK. By having octopus in Apple Pay, I believe the market share of Apple Pay in HK will significantly increases.
There are several advantages of octopus card when comparing to AliPay or WeChat Pay. As octopus is an offline payment and utilities NFC, the speed is much faster to QR code payment. With credit card auto-recharge, many people don’t even need to recharge their octopus card manually.
Last but not least, it is about politics. Although AliPay and WeChat Pay HK are gaining market share in HK, but there are still a lot of HK people refuse to use Chinese mobile payment platform due to privacy concern and distrust to Mainland China.
Best news in iOS 13 for the 7 million Hong Kong people.
Tim Apple will do anything and everything to suck up to China.
As a person living in Hong Kong, it will be a major convenience to me, and sorry I do not agree with your "unwise" comment. I'm being very polite here. [doublepost=1561718868][/doublepost]
By the way, in the code, it says minimum WatchOS version is 999.0, does it mean that it will only support the iPhone but not Apple Watch?
So in other words WeChat Pay and Alipay are just the CurrentC for Asia. You guys should be against this! QR codes? Direct access to bank account? It literally is CurrentC!
Sheesh Apple Pay wins in every way compared to this.
The major difference is that CurrentC was only for specific big brand name stores, which is exactly the places where QR code based payment method isn't needed. The QR code method is a lot more viable financially to smaller stores and temporary booths. [doublepost=1562877798][/doublepost]
And the Bay Area has 7.75million people, it’s where Apple is from, and no sign of Clipper Card coming to iPhone! >:-(
But less than 1% of that 7.75 million people regularly use any of the public transit methods supported by Clipper Card. While in Hong Kong, that percentage is over 95%, at least.
There are so many limitations on Octopus card, it does not compete with WeChat Pay and Alipay at all.
WeChat Pay and Alipay are connected to your bank account, so there is no need to charge money to the Octopus card. And there is limitation on how frequently you can recharging Octopus card.
WeChat and Alipay post payment right way from your bank account, where Octopus card need to wait for certain time for payment to be posted.
Overall, WeChat Pay and Alipay are still more convenient.
So in other words WeChat Pay and Alipay are just the CurrentC for Asia. You guys should be against this! QR codes? Direct access to bank account? It literally is CurrentC!
Sheesh Apple Pay wins in every way compared to this.