Living in the future — Apple Pay in London
I went to the ServerSide.Swift conference in London and survived to tell the tale. This is one article of a series of articles about my experiences in London. Some might be more technical, some might just be impressions. I hope you enjoy them.
Before my trip to London, I asked other attendees of the conference if I would need cash or could just use the card and the unanimous answer was: ‘Just use Apple Pay.’
This surprised me because even though we have Apple Pay in Germany it is always a gamble.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the trend in Germany to not use cash everywhere has increased significantly, but you still cannot rely on it. Supermarkets are still getting better, but the biggest pain is, that for some inexplicable reason to me there is a difference between Apple Pay with a credit card and Apple Pay with a debit card. As so often, I just went to the movies and was happy to see the contactless payment terminal at the popcorn stand, BUT the guy told me it is only for Debit cards😡 (and of course I have a credit card behind it)
So, I was a little bit skeptical when they told me that I don’t need cash at all and could use Apple Pay all the way.
My first encounter was the London underground or tube. You activate Apple Pay on the Watch or iPhone, hold it to the scanner and e voilà — the door opens. When you get off the tube you have to do the same to leave the stations. AWESOME!
Okay, hold your horses. I was in New York this summer and the subway there works just like that, but you don’t have to check out as the fare is always the same.
Since I forgot an UK charger, I went to the Apple Store and I don’t think they have ever seen cash in one of their stores😁. So, no problem there.
At night, we met at a pub and when I ordered my drink, the barkeeper just handed me the Apple Pay/Contactless Pay terminal to pay. At this point I was impressed. In Germany, you always have to ask beforehand and depending on the answer, you can drink one drink or keep them coming.
The next part just had me staring and wondering if I’m still on earth.
A group of eight people and I were hungry after the conference and after-party, so we decided to go to this nice little café-type restaurant. They served us easily 20 plates of delicacies including desserts. Afterwards, they asked us if we would just split the cost evenly including tip and everyone agreed. I was a little skeptical because in Germany it is always a big deal to separate the bill. The waitress typed a few things into her handheld and handed everyone a device to tap on their iPhone or Apple Watch 🤯
I felt like I was living the dream. I still remember apps like ‘Splitwise’ where one person paid the bill and had to fill in all the attendees and the total cost to then calculate everyone’s share, but this was not for paying the bill, just to point out who owed money to whom.
To have the restaurant split the bill like that and then have everyone pay their share with Apple Pay was just amazing.
At that point, I was on the verge of believing in miracles. Then something happened and I lost it: There was this woman on the street selling all kind of roasted nuts and I saw a little sign that said “Apple Pay”. At first I thought it was a joke because the sign did not look official. But I tried it anyway. I asked her if it was real and she said of course it was. And guess what?
I BOUGHT ROASTED ALMONDS WITH Apple Pay!
You would not believe how jealous I was of not living in London.
For now, I will wait for the day I can finally leave my money and cards at home and just go in Germany.
This is it for today. Thank you for reading and stay tuned for my next article.
Moritz
