为什么iPhone不能用来支付北京公交？

北京的非接触式智能公交卡系统已经实行了14年时间，现在北京市推出的一款智能手机应用也具备了相同功能。但这款应用仅支持安卓手机，不支持苹果的iPhone。

《金融时报》指出，问题的根源在于苹果公司不允许第三方应用使用iPhone和Apple Watch中的非接触式支付功能。这项功能仅供苹果自己的Apple Pay系统使用。这种功能所依赖的是行业标准的NFC技术。

虽然这种疏忽可能会让北京的iPhone用户感到不满，但苹果在中国智能手机市场只有约六分之一的市场份额。华为、Oppo、小米等本地安卓手机品牌，在国内更受欢迎。最近的全球智能手机出货量显示，华为的全球市场份额已经接近苹果。

苹果NFC功能仅用于Apple Pay的时间可能不会太久。目前正在测试beta版本的iOS 11系统带来的许多改变，将为该功能增加更多用途。

一位高盛分析师在本月早些时候发表的一篇报告显示，苹果正在努力让美国消费者使用Apple Pay。但公平地说，安卓和三星的品牌支付系统也是同样的处境。Apple Pay的采用率一直在增长，不过这主要得益于中国等新市场。

移动支付在中国非常流行，但本土市场的主导者是阿里巴巴集团的支付宝和腾讯的微信支付。（财富中文网）

译者：刘进龙/汪皓

Beijing has had a contactless smart card for its public transport system for the last 14 years or so, and now it's offering the same functionality through a smartphone app. However, the app is only for Android phones, not Apple's iPhone.

The issue, as noted by the Financial Times, is that Apple doesn't let third-party apps use the contactless payment functionality in the iPhone and Apple Watch. Instead, the company reserves this ability, which relies on industry-standard near-field communication (NFC) technology, for its own Apple Pay system.

While the omission may prove annoying for iPhone users in Beijing, Apple only has around a sixth of the smartphone market in China. Local brands making Android phones—such as Huawei, Oppo and Xiaomi—are significantly more popular. As recent global smartphone shipments have shown, Huawei is catching up with Apple in the worldwide market-share stakes.

The reservation of Apple's NFC implementation for Apple Pay may not last long. Changes coming in iOS 11, which is currently being tested in beta versions, will open up the functionality for other uses.

A Goldman Sachs analyst report earlier this month indicated that Apple Pay is struggling to catch on with consumers in the U.S. Though, to be fair, the same goes for the branded payments systems from Android and Samsung. Apple Pay adoption has been growing, but this is largely down to its rollout across new market, China included.

Mobile payments are popular in China, though Alibaba Group's Alipay and Tencent's WeChat Pay are the big, local beasts there.