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Comment by hot_gril | Hacker News Reader

Some of these terminals are oddly designed. Often the screen says "tap to pay," but you tap something above it that's not clearly marked, not the screen. Enough of the others have you tap the screen that you think it's that. Or a part says "Apple Pay," but that's just advertising the feature, and there's some unmarked area to tap.

But even for the ones that are decent, idk why I'd not just use my credit card.

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Well, then you'll just tap it in the same place that you'd tap your credit card. ;)

I.e. less-snarkily, nothing about that complaint relates to Apple Pay, just to how contactless payments work in general, whether they're from a phone or from a card. Most cards are contactless -- even in the USA -- these days, in my experience.

Yeah, but you can also insert the card into the chip reader and not deal with the NFC stuff. Anyway, it's not an Apple-specific complaint.

This is much less confusing in Europe because all the card readers are smaller and the nfc reader is always on the screen, and the card is the same size as the screen. In the US the screens are so big and the reader spot can be on the screen, on the side, etc , never consistent

Maybe my gripe is a few years old before chip cards became prevalent here in US. You get my point, the lowest common denominator is a card so if my phone isn’t going to work for whatever reason and I have to dig out my card, I’d prefer to just dig out my card. The only time I use Apple Pay is on the phone in their app store, otherwise it’s just irrelevant.

Yeah I never use Apple Pay, it's useless

Apple Pay is super useful for a US-based person while traveling internationally because Apple Pay supports CDCVM. This means that if you have a card that ordinarily requires a signature at the point of sale in the US, you can can use that card in Apple Pay, in Europe or anywhere else, without signing. If you use the physical card, you have to sign. If you try and use the physical card at an automated terminal that doesn't support CVM Signature, you can find yourself in a position where only the Apple Pay version works.

CDCVM also generally doesn't have a contactless floor limit meaning while a contactless card may have a $100-200 cap for transactions, Apple Pay usually doesn't have a cap. Even when local contactless cards may be declined! I say usually because the terminal has to have been updated over the last few years to negotiate CDCVM, which they will in time.

I would highly recommend starting with Apple Pay abroad and only if it doesn't work falling back to a physical card because you will have a far better experience.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind next time I travel. Last time, the country didn't have Apple Pay.

Apple Pay is different from an NFC card tap because it's authenticated. This rarely matters in the US but it can in other countries.

Yes, in theory it should be more secure, but they aren't passing that benefit onto the customer in the form of a lower fee or anything, so it's pointless to me.

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