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Offline Apple pay?
- Thread starter techguy9
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Unknown for sure at this time but I believe it will be so. Many believe it will work without having your iPhone with you as long as you don't remove your 
Watch. If removed you may have to re-pair with you iPhone OR you may be able to use the PIN to re-enable Pay.
Watch. If removed you may have to re-pair with you iPhone OR you may be able to use the PIN to re-enable Pay.Unknown for sure at this time but I believe it will be so. Many believe it will work without having your iPhone with you as long as you don't remove your
that wouldn't make any sense. your credit cards are stored in passbook, which is stored in your iPhone. how would the Watch be able to retrieve the credit card information if the phone is not present?
unless theres a passbook app within the watch that has that card information stored as well, which would make sense as well for security purposes. instead of wirelessly sharing that information between phone and watch, the nfc chip within the watch itself has the secure element for payment purposes, in which case, yes, phone won't be needed to make purchases with the watch.
but id personally predict it will be the former option. the watch is heavily reliant on the iPhone as it is. id doubt the watch's ability of Apple Pay will work without the iPhone present.
Not so fast. In order for Apple watch to do Apple Pay without an iPhone present, it needs an Apple Pay app AND a secure element in its hardware. We know there is an Apple Pay app, do we know if the Apple watch has a secure element?
I mean, I would love to be able to run to the grocery store with just the watch and pay for my purchase without having to bring along the phone. But I don't know if that would be possible with the first gen watch.
It should have it, based on the fact that it'll work with the iPhone 5, 5c and 5s, none of which features a secure element.
Apple Watch is confirmed to enable Apple Pay for iPhone 5 models. Since iPhone 5's don't have a secure element, it stands to reason that the Apple Watch has one.
And if the watch holds the credit card info on its secure element, it won't need a phone nearby to use Apple Pay.
Edit: Beat me to it, JayLeno...
And if the watch holds the credit card info on its secure element, it won't need a phone nearby to use Apple Pay.
Edit: Beat me to it, JayLeno...
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Good news! Thank you both for pointing this out.
Although, I think 5s does have a secure element, since it has Touch ID. But you are right that 5 and 5c don't have it, so the watch must have the secure element.
Yes, but the 5s lacks the specific secure element security chip to generate the code to conduct Apple Pay transactions. That's why TouchID won't work with Apple Pay on the 5s even for in-app purchases. In other words, the secure element found in the 5s lacks the security part for Apple Pay.
Huh. Okay. I thought that the reason 5s doesn't do ApplePay is because it doesn't have NFC, but it does make sense that it also doesn't have the capability to generate the code for ApplePay.
As a little more clarification:
If I remember correctly (and I'm pretty sure I am), the "Secure Element" and "Secure Enclave" are two separate components in two different pieces of hardware. The Secure Element, which holds information about Credit Cards, isn't stored within the A processor but instead within the NFC hardware itself. This is why iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 3 contain the NFC hardware (albeit lacking antennas), to support "digital" Pay.
The Secure Enclave, which stores fingerprint receipts, is actually located within a zone on the A7 & A8.
Edit (and part 2!): The thing I wonder is if the Watch is authenticating solo and an Internet connection is required to generate tokens for the authentication (p sure it is, but anyone know for sure?), is it safe to trust/use a connection from the terminal?
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No reason to expect this as Apple Pay works offline on the iPhone 6/6+, but we'll find out eventually.
Ah! I did a little digging and yeah, no Internet Connection is required for Pay.
Seems like A-Go! to me!
That is correct. TouchID authenticates via the Secure Enclave, and sends a coded "okay" message key and card reference, to the NFC Secure Element, which generates the payment codes that go back to the bank.
In the case of the Watch, the TouchID part is missing, so we can assume that after pairing the watch with the phone when you put it on, its own Secure Element is given permission each time you click the bottom button.
One question I have, is how the Watch's Secure Element gets provisioned, since it'll need its own device tokens. Will it be a one-click copy/setup using the phone's Passbook? If so, how, since the phone doesn't store the real account numbers needed to get a token. Perhaps there's a "clone token" command.