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Comment by sschueller | Hacker News Reader

The only reason the popular payment system in Switzerland (Twint) uses garbage bluetooth at some cash registers or qr codes (at RF terminals) is because Apple not allowing the use of their NFC (at least they did not back a few years ago). Until recently, Apple was very dominant in Switzerland and any payment solution that didn't work with Apple would be dead on arrival.

Every 3rd question on the Twint forums is a request to implement payment via watch but that ain't happening as long as Apple block this and they will not enable a feature only for Android users.

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>they will not enable a feature only for Android users

Can I ask why not? Seems a shame to leave such a large user base on the table.

There aren't any good Android watches really. Perhaps this will change with Google and Samsung pairing up but right now as Android user you're pretty much out of luck

I thought parent meant payment via android phones. Is there a difference between that and watches? NFC (Google pay) should work the same across the Android ecosystem, no?

I dunno, I bought a cheap-o Fossil watch a couple years ago on a whim, and I actually ended up using the Google Pay feature most of all. Being able to leave my phone and wallet in my backpack while I pay for coffee felt like a whole new level of real-life Disneyland.

I had a Galaxy Watch Active with Samsung Pay for a while and I have to agree. That is a great feature if it works.

However, it didn't actually work very well. You have to do several button presses and taps on the phone, during which it launches very slowly, and once you get to the payment part it often failed for whatever reason. "Multiple cards detected", "payment denied", whatever. It was quicker to fish the card out of my wallet and much less stressful.

PS: The card I paid with when it failed was the exact same card that I had linked to Samsung Pay, there were no balance issues :)

Android Pay (when I used it) was distinctly different. As long as it was unlocked (eg. hadn't been taken off your wrist) you could press a button to quick-launch the NFC payment app. Since I wasn't using the shortcuts for anything else, it worked quite well for me.

There aren't any good Smart Watches, really. Apple aren't good smartwatch manufacturers when their smartwatches only know how to talk to other Apple devices and services (like HealthKit or whatever it's called) and actively prevent compatibility with other systems. I mean, that's just buying into Apple's hype. If their watch was so good, they'd make it talk through open standards and they wouldn't go for ecosystem lock-in: it would be good on its own merit.

My Samsung Galaxy watch has had an EKG sensor for longer than it has taken for Apple to add their own. It's technologically superior, and also has a circular face instead of being a big square block, and has better battery life since I can get a good 2 days or more out of it. But ultimately it is also as bad as Apple because it only works well with Samsung's ecosystem.

Apple sells more smartwatches so the market has a diff opinion than yours

But doesn't Android sell more devices overall? Does that imply Android is better?

Sorry but that’s a lousy argument.

The whole point about Apple (for decades) is vertical integration, building hardware and software specifically optimized for the said hardware. That’s what Apple is in it’s core, that’s why they’ve been revolutionizing industries and that’s why iPhones, iPads and MacBooks are most performant and battery efficient consumer devices for years.

It’s like saying - “There aren’t any good consoles really. Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo aren’t good console manufacturers when their consoles only know how to talk to other PlayStation/Xbox/Nintendo services and actively prevent compatibility with other systems.”

“There aren’t any good consoles really. Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo aren’t good console manufacturers when their consoles only know how to talk to other PlayStation/Xbox/Nintendo services and actively prevent compatibility with other systems.”

To be fair that point did improve in the last few years. In the past, cross-platform online play wasn't even a thing.

They're opening up because they're competing against eachothers, while Apple is doing whatever it can to avoid open standards with their devices. Unless the standard itself is too big to avoid and not adopting it would put them at a disadvantage.

> Sorry but that’s a lousy argument.

> MacBooks are most performant

Huh? MacBooks have the same performance as corresponding Windows laptops. That only slightly changed with M1, but it doesn't seem anything to do with vertical integration, and rather just the result of buying out 5nm production.

Also there is complete lack of models with Nvidia GPUs, so they are a lackluster in graphics.

Because then you have to explain why it works for them and not for you and that it’s not your fault, straight in your marketing.

Yeah but making money off ~55% of the mobile userbase seems better than 100% of nothing.

At the cost of reducing the opinion of your company for anyone who has problems.

Whether or not that's a worthwhile tradeoff: I dunno! No doubt it depends on exact numbers, lifetime expected value, potential word-of-mouth damage, etc.

Its a bank. People will pay and use money either way. Its a feature improvement, not an original feature. If they just avoid the headaches, they don't lose anything really.

Put a notice when setting up the app that because of Apple's limitation on NFC that the feature is unavailable.

I assume it is because at the moment the usability is identical across all devices and bank versions. Enabling a feature on a device and not on the other which has more users will cause support headaches.

But then that's Apple issue. Simply refer the Apple fans back to Apple, or advise them to switch to Android.

That doesn't work with Apple fans. They will blame you, never Apple. It has gotten better now but back then it was always your fault because Apple was the most innovative etc. etc. etc.

Good artists copy, great artists steal.

Apple literally copied half of the Android long after stuff made it to Android. They've even copied Swype keyboard like 10 years later!

And Android copied windows phone. ;) Windows phone had some of the best power settings for a long time, turning into a dumb phone when the battery got low.

Apple rejects apps for explaining App Store guidelines to users or mentioning Android.

Why stop implementing a feature because one of the vendor is arbitrarily limiting the hardware? Targetting the lowest common denominator isn't always the right move, especially if one platform is stagnating for their own benefit.

Light up a fire under their feet, have the userbase put some pressure on Apple if they're unhappy about the situation.

And the only reason why a national, NIH payment system like Twint became "popular" was that all bigger Swiss banks for several years refused to allow regular mobile payments (i.e. Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay) for their credit cards.

Since 2019, more and more banks have started enabling regular mobile payments, so it's going to be interesting to see where that leaves Twint (I've never used it, so I have no idea what reasons one would have to use it over NFC payments, other than lack of support by one's card provider).

https://www.moneyland.ch/en/apple-pay-google-pay-swiss-banks...

Twint has one advantage over cards and that is online payments. It is so quick and easy to scan a code and pay than entering credit card details. Yes, I know apple pay can do things like that but I still need a credit card in that case. Twint lets me pay directly out of my bank account or even via prepaid Twint.

The biggest "scam" going on now is the banks specifically Visa pushing their garbage Debit card. For users it seems great as it's cheaper no fee thing, however for vendors it is a nightmare. The fees are astronomical over regular credit cards yet they have to accept them if they want to accept Visa's credit card. Visa found another legal loop hole they can milk and they are going all the way.

I'd argue that for the customer, Apple Pay is about as quick and easy as it gets. Obtaining a credit card is a one time inconvenience.

The potential fees involved would be more of a concern for the vendors, it seems to me. Are you saying that Visa debit cards have higher fees than their credit cards? My understanding was that usually it's the other way around.

Twint has no fees for the customer and you can send each other money as well. The Vendor pays around 2%

Visa has higher fees not for the customer but for the vendors. It's specifically a problem in Switzerland where the "Maestro" bank cards are being replaced with Visa Debit which is being pushed by the banks. The benefit for the custom is they can use those visa cards online but the fees at the store for the vendor are up to 260 times higher. [1]

[1] https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/neue-debitkarten-visa-und-ma...

From the article, it appears like Maestro had a fixed fee, while Visa has a percentage of the transaction amount. Visa claims that small transactions might be getting a bit cheaper, but for big ticket items, the transaction obviously is considerably more expensive.

Same in Denmark with the popular mobile payment app "MobilePay".

You know what, it's probably the same reason Walmart Pay is based on QR codes, too.

It's probably why NFC is not universal on Android as well.

More or less the same in China

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