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Apple Pay is coming to New York City’s mess of a subway system 

This will make the system less terrible, hopefully.

Nyc mta subway apple pay
Image: Unsplash

I was in New York City over the past weekend and had to endure the trials and tribulations of its once-revered subway system. Spoiler alert – it was horrible.

The whole experience was a mess. My trains were late. It was hot. I would have to wait at least a minimum of 10 minutes before a train arrived. It also took me forever to purchase an MTA card due to the long lines of confused tourists trying to figure out how those stupid vending machines work. Oh, it also smelled like urine down there.

In any event, NYC’s subway system isn’t getting any better, infrastructure wise, but the good news is that the MTA will be adding contactless payments like Apple Pay to its ticketing kiosks as early this summer. This was confirmed by Tim Cook on the company’s Q2 earnings call on Tuesday.

This means all you have to do to pay for your ticket is tap your phone or watch on any MTA ticketing booth to use Apple Pay

If you’re not an iPhone or Apple Watch user, don’t worry, it seems like the MTA is adding a few different other contactless payment options. Who knows, maybe Android Pay or even contactless credit cards? It’s unclear at this point, but it’s highly likely. I mean, you can’t have one without the other.

The system is called OMNY, and it’s supposed to launch May 31. According to The Verge, the full system won’t roll out till 2020. As the Gothamist reports, folks are already seeing Apple Pay-equipped kiosks in the wild, but at this time they’re not fully functional yet. To get an idea of how it works, CBS NY was provided with a quick demo by the MTA which you can watch below.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Kevin is KnowTechie's founder and executive editor. With over 15 years of blogging experience in the tech industry, Kevin has transformed what was once a passion project into a full-blown tech news publication. Shoot him an email at kevin@knowtechie.com or find him on Mastodon or Post.

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