Alongside the introduction of iOS 10.1 and watchOS 3.1, Apple has switched on support for Apple Pay in Japan. This makes the iPhone 7 and Apple Watch Series 2 compatible with the FeliCa contactless payment system used by almost two million payment terminals in the country.
Supporting Apple Pay in Japan was not a trivial undertaking for Apple. Although FeliCa is an NFC-based contactless payment system, it’s not compatible with the systems used in most other countries. Apple had to equip Japanese devices with a different NFC chip to support FeliCa – which is also used in Hong Kong and Singapore – which is bad news for the rest of us when travelling to the region …
Filed under: Apple
