03-13-2018, 11:49 AM
(03-13-2018, 09:52 AM)Canard Wrote: Is the reader technology compatible with smartphones?
What I mean: why not have an easyGo card in your iPhone Wallet, so you can just tap your phone.
Apple are very developer-unfriendly when it comes to NFC. It's only in the latest-and-greatest iOS version that there are any developer APIs for it at all, and those only allow for the phone to read other things, not to emulate the things being read. Unless the region could somehow get Apple to code it into Apple Pay, from which Apple always gets a percentage of every transaction, there's just no way.
Android allows full 'Host Card Emulation', which in theory can do the job, but depending on how GRT's fare system works that may not be a magic bullet either.
If you look at Presto for example, the card stores the value and the history of recent transactions so that the next reader tapped can examine previous taps to figure out if any transfer or discount applies. This is great because it allows the readers to work 'offline', without communications delays or blockages to worry about when figuring out go/no-go on any given tap. But when you load value onto your Presto card online, EVERY machine in the system has to be updated (which for buses and streetcars is only when they're back in the garage) with a leger of outstanding loads, so that the next time you tap your card the 'reader' can write the value back onto it to complete the load.
Why is that an issue for Android? Because the mobile would have to emulate a card of its own, with a unique identity, stored value, and transaction history that's completely independent of your physical Presto card. You couldn't start a trip on one and then continue with the other.
If GRT's system works like Presto with 'stored value' on the cards themselves, then similar limitations will apply to the mobile use case, even on Android with those wonderful card emulation APIs for the developers to use at no charge.
...K