Mikey Campbell
iPhone 6 or 6 Plus users who upgrade to iOS 9 can now access non-default credit, debit and loyalty cards in their Apple Pay Wallet directly from the lock screen, with just two taps of the home button.
iOS 9's ability to access Wallet, née Passbook in iOS 8, from an iPhone's lock screen is a feature partially borrowed from Apple Watch. With Apple's wearable, users activate touchless NFC Apple Pay capabilities via a double-press of the power button.
For iPhone 6 and 6 Plus users running iOS 8, simply bringing the device within range of a compatible and active point of sale terminal automatically invokes the Apple Pay function. Users need only to authenticate via Touch ID to complete a transaction.
Apple's iOS 9 not only carries over these same automated payment functions, but add in the convenience of selecting from any number of provisioned cards without unlocking iPhone and opening the Wallet app.
To turn on lock screen Wallet access, open Settings and navigate to Touch ID & Passcode. After entering your device passcode, scroll down to the menu subsection titled Allow Access When Locked: and toggle Wallet to the on position.
Once activated, Wallet can be accessed directly from the lock screen by double-clicking the home button, selecting an appropriate card on screen and authenticating via Touch ID.
The feature will be especially handy given newfound support for Kohl's and JCPenney special store cards. Apple Pay access to loyalty and member cards will also be available from additional select retailers.
Charles Martin
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57 Comments
Too bad companies need to add support for it. Will never happen in Europe, so this will be another useless feature over here. I would love to be able to add my own loyalty cards that automatically pop up based on my location. So trivial, but still doesn't exist.
There's been talk about how the iPod Touch didn't get ?Pay because it isn't "always connected", but I was looking on the Apple website and it shows that Passbook is pre-installed on the iPod. That makes it seem like skipping ?Pay really was just a choice by Apple and not because the iPod isn't always connected. Now, granted, my old iPod Touch can't even install Passbook so I don't know exactly how this works - is anyone else aware of some major difference between how membership cards and credit cards work in Passbook that one makes sense and the other doesn't?
[quote name="LighteningKid" url="/t/187263/ios-9-tips-access-apple-pays-wallet-without-unlocking-your-iphone#post_2749593"]There's been talk about how the iPod Touch didn't get ?Pay because it isn't "always connected", but I was looking on the Apple website and it shows that Passbook is pre-installed on the iPod. That makes it seem like skipping ?Pay really was just a choice by Apple and not because the iPod isn't always connected. Now, granted, my old iPod Touch can't even install Passbook so I don't know exactly how this works - is anyone else aware of some major difference between how membership cards and credit cards work in Passbook that one makes sense and the other doesn't? [/quote] It doesn't need to be always connected. That's not how ?Pay works. The internet connection only needs to be used for setup, after that it only needs the local NFC HW for communication with the local PoS HW. That antenna plus the NFC chip which include the secure element are the HW it doesn't have. Not having Touch ID is also an issue, but not having Touch ID is not mandatory for an NFC-based payment system, it's simply a feature that helps streamline the process.
Will never happen in Europe, so this will be another useless feature over here.
Apple will add it to their stores and then other people will follow. Bigger loyalty cards will follow or they'll lose out and smaller loyalty card brands will follow suit. It's just a matter of time.
I thought this was a glitch the entire time.