IPhones miss Beijing Subway’s smartphone upgrade

Beijing passengers will be able to pay for subways rides by swiping their smart phones from Monday onwards, unless they are iPhone users.

About 160 phone models support mobile payment for the Beijing subway through near fi eld communication ( NFC), a method of wireless data transfer technology, the Beijing Municipal Administration and Communication Card Company ( BMAC) announced on Sunday.

Until recently, Apple had restricted the iPhone’s NFC payment functionality to use with the Apple Pay platform.

Though NFC chip access was opened to third- party developers for the iPhone 7 in June, older models remain locked out.

Brands such as Huawei, Samsung and Xiaomi and Meizu already provide developers with access to their phones’ NFC. For phones without NFC chips, users can switch to an NFC- enabled SIM card.

Commuters can download an app and top off their accounts without paying a deposit.

Annual passenger volume of the Beijing subway reached 3.6 billion in 2016, making it the busiest rail network in the world, the Xinhua News Agency reported in July.

More than 200,000 passengers a day used the NFC payment system during a pilot program on Beijing’s Fangshan Line in June, making up 2 percent of overall daily transactions on the city’s subway, BMCA told the Beijing Youth Daily.