48 MACWORLD OCTOBER 2019
iOSCENTRAL TRAVELING WITH APPLE TECHdecent amount of friction.
As I’ve been making the rounds, I’ve
made note of a few places where I think
Apple technologies have worked
particularly well, as well as where there’s
some room for improvement.
CONTACTLESS PAYMENTS
If this trip has drilled home one thing, it’s
that contactless payments are king. Apple
Pay has been a godsend—it’s even easier
than digging out your card and fumbling
with an unfamiliar system. It’s clearer than
ever that digital payments are the way of
the future and, if anything, it’s a future
where the U.S. is still lagging behind.
Contactless payments in Europe is
much faster than their counterparts back in
the States, where it can often feel like a
bolt-on to the existing system. And the
reader hardware is far more ubiquitous in
places like the U.K. Even out in the middle
of a hiking trip in a national park, the local
tea shop was more than happy to take
payment via our phones.
That said, one area where Apple Pay
lags behind some of its competitors is the
slow rollout of Apple Cash and the inability
to transfer funds between people from
different countries. If I want to pay back my
Scottish friend for being nice enough to
buy me a SIM card, I still need to fall back
to services like PayPal and Venmo—or
time-honored traditions like buying them
dinner. Apple Cash has quickly become
my default way to exchange money withContactless payments in
Europe is fast, but Apple
Pay lags in a few areas.