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.
Thursday January 23, 2025 6:41 am PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 18.3 should be released to the public next week, following beta testing since mid-December. While the software update is a relatively minor one, it still includes a handful of new features, changes, and bug fixes for iPhones.
Below, we recap everything new in iOS 18.3.
Notification Summary Changes
Examples of inaccurate Apple Intelligence notification summaries
Apple Intelligence...
Friday January 24, 2025 1:55 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple is set to release iOS 18.3 next week, bringing further refinements to Apple Intelligence features, a couple of neat new capabilities to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 devices, and bug fixes.
While not quite as packed with new features as Apple's preceding iOS 18 point releases, iOS 18.3 still introduces capabilities that aim to make your iPhone smarter and more intuitive. Below, we've...
Friday January 24, 2025 8:16 am PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 18.3 is expected to be widely released next week, and that means the first iOS 18.4 beta for iPhones should be just around the corner.
Apple has previously implied that iOS 18.4 will be released in April, as that is when it promised to make Apple Intelligence available in even more languages.
Below, we outline what to expect from iOS 18.4 so far.
Apple Intelligence for Siri
Siri ...
Thursday January 23, 2025 7:32 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Walmart still does not accept Apple Pay or other NFC payments at its more than 4,600 stores across the U.S., and it stood firm on its reasoning for that today.
A spokesperson for Walmart today informed MacRumors that its position on contactless payments has not changed since we last reached out about the matter in 2022. The big-box retailer said it remains focused on its own convenient...
Wednesday January 22, 2025 6:01 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
A new Apple TV is expected to be released later this year. In this article, we recap rumored features and changes for the device.
The next Apple TV will be equipped with Apple's own combined Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. He said the chip supports Wi-Fi 6E, which would be an upgrade over the current Apple TV's standard Wi-Fi 6 support. Wi-Fi 6E extends the...
Tuesday January 21, 2025 4:31 pm PST by Juli Clover
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 18.3 today, and with it comes release notes confirming what's new. While we knew about several of the features that are in the update, there are some lesser known tweaks and bug fixes.
The update adds new Visual Intelligence features for iPhone 16 models, it tweaks Notification summaries on all...
Friday January 24, 2025 9:09 am PST by Juli Clover
The upcoming iPhone 17 models that Apple plans to release this year will not feature a smaller Dynamic Island, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said today.
On social media, he said that he is expecting the size of the Dynamic Island to remain "largely unchanged" across the iPhone 17 lineup. His statement is contrary to prior rumors that we've heard about planned changes for the iPhone 17 models.
...
Saturday January 25, 2025 5:07 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple's retail stores will be rolling out "merchandise/floor marketing updates" next week, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Gurman did not explicitly say if the store updates are related to any upcoming product announcements, but he did mention that next week is around the time that Apple rolls out its annual Black Unity watch band for the Apple Watch.
In each of the past four years, ...
Thursday January 23, 2025 2:48 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
It's also time for Apple's first product announcement of the year.
Last year, Apple said it would be launching Powerbeats Pro 2 in 2025, and the wireless earbuds are expected to launch very soon.
Powerbeats Pro 2 images found in iOS 18 code
In his Power On newsletter last weekend, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said the Powerbeats Pro 2 are "due imminently." In addition to Apple filing the...
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.
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.
