Apple Pay is the tech giant's mobile payment arm that lets iPhone users purchase nearly anything by holding their handset over an NFC terminal at a store. You can pay other Apple users with the handy Apple Cash feature and even make purchases and earn rewards with an Apple Card. Apple Pay has paved the way for cash-free, card-free shopping, and it gets better with every iOS iteration. Considering it only works with iPhones, Apple Pay is our Editors' Choice winner for Apple users, while Google Wallet is our Editors' Choice for Android.
How to Set Up Apple Pay
If you have an iPhone 6 or newer, you already have Apple Pay. It's baked into iOS as part of the Wallet app. To use Apple Pay, you must first set up a passcode, Touch ID, or Face ID (if you use an iPhone X or later).
Adding a new credit card to use with Apple Pay is easy. Just take a picture of the front of the card and enter the remaining security details. Apple Pay can draw money from iCloud or iTunes if you have a card associated with those accounts.
Touch ID and Face ID comprise a strong first layer of security, but you can never be too safe regarding your money. So, Apple Pay takes things one step further by obscuring your real card data with anonymized digital tokens. When you make purchases, this anonymous data is the only information retailers receive.
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Google Wallet and Samsung Pay use a similar fake-number system. In fact, your financial service sends a Device Account Number stored on the device in a special chip called a Secure Element. All this makes Apple Pay a secure payment choice, and even more secure than a plastic card.
Making Payments With Apple Pay
Most retailers support Apple Pay, including American Eagle, Gap, GameStop, Walgreens, and White Castle. Apple states that Apple Pay is accepted by more than 85% of US retailers. Some display it loud and proud with an Apple graphic in the front window or near the register, but you'll often just see the EMVCo Contactless Symbol (which looks like a Wi-Fi symbol).
We paid for our evening groceries at the local supermarket with an iPhone X, which required double-tapping the side button and showing the phone our face. You can also enter a PIN as an alternative to complete the payment. Double-tapping the button also pulls up Apple Pay by default, but you can deactivate that option.
Apple Pay also works with the Apple Watch. You can simply double-tap the side button and hold your wrist next to a payment terminal to make your purchase. The Apple Watch forces you to reenter a password if it senses it's no longer touching skin, so nearby thieves can't rip off your watch and use it for spending sprees.
When a payment goes through, you feel a satisfying haptic clunk. It's quick, simple, and painless, but it's a toss-up as to whether Google Wallet's system of working whenever the phone is unlocked is easier (you can protect that service with a separate PIN). The Apple Pay app lists all your transactions for later review.
Competitor Samsung Pay has a clever strategy that makes it usable even at stores without NFC systems: It uses embedded magnetic circuitry to mimic a credit or debit card, so the app can communicate with any standard card reader. Granted, Samsung Pay only works on recent Samsung phones. Google Wallet is restricted to the same limited number of NFC-equipped stores as Apple Pay, though most points of sale systems have updated to the newer system.
Apple Card
In a joint effort with Goldman Sachs and MasterCard, the Apple Card offers perks with your payments. Signing up for it is easier and faster than any other credit card we've applied to: You simply go into the Wallet app on your iPhone and answer a few questions. We used the card for purchases later the same day.
The card offers 2% cash back on most charges and 3% for purchases at the Apple Store and select other retailers (Panera and Walgreens, for example). The card charges no annual fees, transaction fees (even for foreign transactions), or late fees. If you miss a payment, your interest rate increases, though cards that charge late fees often do that, too. The interest rate for our card was considerably lower than a recent card acquired from Citibank.
The one downside to the rewards is that they go into your Apple Cash account by default, rather than against your credit balance, though you can set it up to dump money there. One boon to the system is that, unlike typical bank reward plans, you get the money soon after the payment is charged, rather than once a month.
A fun, unique feature of the card is that it starts as blank white, and as you use it for charges, it grows more colorful. The card shifts to orange if you spend a lot of money on food and drink. If most of your charges come from transit purchases, it'll get a blue hue. You also get a notification on your phone for any activity on the account. It shows a map of the store you paid at, and suggests an amount to pay that limits the interest you'll spend. As with any credit card, though, paying it off every month is the best policy, saving you from paying any interest. You're also protected by MasterCard's zero liability protection, which is the case with most credit cards.
You can order a physical card for stores that don't take Apple Pay (though you only get a 1% reward), and you can access a standard but "virtual" credit card number for online purchases. You can't access your Apple Card info from your account on the main Apple site, but you can go to card.apple.com to see your statements and so on.
Digital Tickets
The Apple Wallet app that incorporates Apple Pay has a few more uses. You can store information such as boarding passes, movie and game tickets, gift cards, and loyalty program information in one spot. This is similar to what Google Wallet offers. There's a link to a section of the App Store where you can browse for apps that take advantage of Apple Wallet, such as Fandango, Southwest Airlines, and Target. Some of these apps even allow for in-app purchases via Apple Pay. This kind of convenience adds to Apple Wallet's usefulness.
Apple's Express Mode works by holding your phone or watch to an entry payment point for transit tickets without verifying with face or touch. It works in several major cities, including New York, Portland, and Washington, DC. It can also be used internationally, including Australia, France, and Japan. The list of cities grows with each iOS update, so look at Apple Wallet's transit availability to see if your locale is supported.
Apple Cash
Like PayPal and Venmo, Apple Cash lets you pay friends and store money in a virtual debit card, rather than just using Apple Pay as a conduit for a credit or bank card. You can send or receive a maximum of $10,000 per week, with a maximum of $10,000 in a message. With Apple Cash Family (a service for sending money to children or teens in your Family Sharing Group), there's a $2,000 upper limit.
A slider switch in the Wallet & Apple Pay section of the Settings menu lets you enable Apple Cash. Once you slide this switch, you must enter your Apple ID and password and accept a legal agreement stating that the services are provided through Green Dot Bank. The terms indicate that Apple Cash comprises two services: a virtual payment card and a funds transfer service.
Apple Cash works with most iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch models. Note that you can send money only to other iOS users who have accepted the agreement. You both need to set up two-factor authentication for your Apple ID. Two-factor authentication provides additional security but is stricter than the other payment services' setup requirements. Setup also requires reentering your credit card digits.
After we completed these steps, we were asked to add a debit card so that money could be transferred to our bank account. You don't have to do this to use the service, but the setup is more involved than it is with Venmo.
As with Facebook Messenger's Payments feature, you send or request money via the iPhone's Messages app (similar to Facebook Messenger's Payment feature) or through Apple Wallet. In Messages, the option is in the app tray at the bottom of the screen. Just tap the plus icon to open it, then select Apple Cash. You then see a dollar amount that you can increase or decrease, and you can switch between paying and requesting. Venmo requires you to open its separate app to make payments. That's a plus for Facebook and Apple, in that you access payments from a messaging app you're probably using regularly already.
When we tapped Pay to send $1 to a colleague and then hit the Send up arrow, we had to approve the transaction with Touch ID or Face ID. You can use only a debit card or your Apple Cash balance to pay acquaintances. The chat entry says Pending until the recipient receives the funds.
Of course, you can also use the Wallet app, and the process is just as easy. Open the Wallet app, tap your Apple Cash card, and tap Send or Request. Select or add your recipient, then the amount of money, and tap Send. Confirm the payment with Face ID, Touch ID, or your PIN.
Siri Compatibility, Security, and Split Payments
You can tell Siri to, "Pay John Doe five dollars." This type of voice control is also possible with Venmo and Cash App. Unlike Venmo, Apple Pay doesn't share your transaction with a social network by default. With Venmo, unless you change privacy settings, any of your contacts can see who you paid in a feed of transactions. However, Venmo offers a couple of important advantages over Apple's system: You can scan a QR code to verify your payee and attach notes along with a payment. Venmo also lets you pay amounts smaller than $1, Apple's minimum.
Google Wallet, PayPal, and Venmo allow you to split payments among multiple recipients. PayPal offers a Money Pool feature for group gifts. Apple Pay lacks these functions.
If you receive money from a contact, it goes into your Apple Cash virtual cash card. You can use that balance either by dumping it back into a connected bank account or paying for something else via Apple Pay or Apple Cash. Cash App can send you a physical cash card that you can use in stores to spend the money received in your Square account.
Apple Cash, Venmo, and PayPal can all be used to shop at online retailers. As the most ubiquitous internet payment service, PayPal (which also owns Venmo) has the upper hand here. The biggest advantage of Facebook Payments, PayPal, and Venmo, however, is that they're platform-independent. With any of them, you can send money to anyone, regardless of their operating system. With all those save Venmo, you can make and receive payments from a web browser—not with Apple Cash (or Samsung Pay). If you're using Apple's system and want to pay an Android user, you must hand over dirty old cash.
Verdict: A Top-Tier Payment App for iPhone Users
Apple Pay is a secure mobile payment service that becomes even more useful with the addition of Apple Cash and Apple Card. Much like Google Wallet, Apple Pay is limited to its company's ecosystem. However, it offers a fantastic suite of money-sending features, making it our Editors' Choice winner for mobile payment apps for iPhone users.
Michael Muchmore contributed to this review.
Apple Card, Apple Cash, and Apple Pay work together to give iPhone users plenty of options for paying stores and friends.
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