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From: VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH>
Newsgroups: comp.mobile.android
Subject: Re: Samsung Wallet vs Google Pay
Date: Sat, 4 May 2024 15:51:52 -0500
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Do you really want to give your very expensive smartphone to a table
jockey that doesn't tote around an NFC reader, but has to walk to a
terminal to register the transaction?  When a waiter comes to my table
for me to pay my tab, he has no means of using my phone at the table.
Many restaurants do not have a front desk where you pay for your meal.
You're expected to pay before you leave the table.  The waiters use
terminals to enter the transaction, not hand-held readers.

I'd much prefer handing over a plastic card to a waiter who takes it to
a terminal to enter the transaction than hand them my phone with the
mobile pay app prepared to perform a transaction when the waiter gets it
back to the terminal.  I rarely put my phone into the hands of others,
and even then with great hesitation.  Getting a replacement card is
free.  Replacing a phone is very expensive.  Yep, there are still plenty
of retailers that have no means of reading your phone when you are not
at their front desk or cash register station, if they have one.

What about the contractor that, say, cuts down a tree, and wants to be
paid?  He has his phone, but can your mobile pay app using NFC connect
to his mobile pay app via NFC on his phone?  I've seen many SOHO folks
that plug in a USB card reader into their phone, and that's how they get
paid by sliding your card through their card reader attached to their
phone.  I've even had contractors that don't even have the USB card
reader.  They have to manually write down the credit card number, CVV,
and expiration date onto an invoice that you sign.  Wave the phone all
over the invoice paper, but it ain't gonna work.

I see mobile pay apps as convenient only when they are so.  That they
exist doesn't mean those apps are the most convenient payment method.
Many users don't leave their phones on in trying to preserve battery
power for when they do want to use their phones.  Oh joy, wait to power
up the phone, hope it has enough power, wait for it to load the OS, wait
to load the mobile pay app, select a payment method, and then wave the
phone near the reader.  Hardly convenient having to wait several minutes
to commit the transaction.

Do the mobile pay apps run as a service?  If not, how long does it take
to load them?  No, not refocus to a backgrounded app, but to load the
app, and then select which card to charge?  Android leaves apps
backgrounded until memory is needed for a newly loaded app whereupon a
backgrounded app gets unloaded.  That means backgrounded apps eventually
get unloaded, and you have to load them again.  If ran as a service, or
as a sticky app, Android will reload the service or sticky app when it
finds the app is not loaded.  Otherwise, it's up to you to reload the
app.  For various reasons, some folks use task killers to eliminate idle
backgrounded apps, but services get restarted or sticky apps reloaded
(and why task killers cause consternation amoung their users not
understanding why a killed app will reappear).

I always have my wallet on me.  It's in my pants pocket when I put on my
pants, or I transfer the wallet and other goodies to a clean pair.  My
phone might be with me, might not.  I too often forget to take my phone
with me.  Also, just because I have the phone doesn't mean it happens to
be fully charged.  I've been out with my phone when it makes the dreaded
"battery low" alert, or I find it auto-powered off when the battery
level got too low.  Phones are nowhere near as reliable as cards.  Go
canoeing and fall over into the water.  Card still works, phone may not.
Drop a card.  It still works, maybe not a phone.  Cards don't need
batteries.  Phones do.  I could tote around a spare battery (if the
phone has a user-serviceable battery) or a power pack, but that adds
more nuisance to carrying a phone.  I can leave a charger in my car, but
I'd have to be near my car, and wait for the phone to charge.  While I
can charge to a card, I don't need to charge a card.

I have both manual tools, and those that are battery powered, like a
hand screwdriver and a cordless power drill.  I use both.  Even when the
powered drill is charged and immediately at hand, sometimes a manual
screwdriver is the better choice.  Take both the phone and card with
you.  Use whichever is most convenient at the time, and whichever will
work at the time.  Sometimes either will work.  Sometimes only one
works.  Sometimes neither will work (shit happens).