[Galaxy Note5 General] BarryH_GEG:
That one's kind of a given. ;)

Anyway, Wallet updated itself to Android Pay a couple of days ago so I got to play with it. Did anyone here use ISIS/Softcard? Compared to the old Wallet it worked great and was literally "tap and go" so you didn't have to deal with picking debit or credit and answering "enter rewards number?' and "is amount OK?" That's the way Apple Pay works. I was hoping with the Softcard purchase things would have improved but they haven't. The only improvement in A-Pay I noticed is not having to launch the app to use it. If the device is alive and unlocked it'll work. Any other big enhancements I missed?

I've been in the S-Pay beta since it launched but I haven't been able to use it because none of my cards were eligible. I hated my bank so moved everything over to US Bank and all my "stuff" came in Thrusday including a Visa check card and credit card. Some S-Pay observations...

Not related to S-Pay, but US Bank

really

wants to make sure it's you using your "stuff." My check card came Thursday but you can't activate it without signing up for online banking. Fine, but you need your bank assigned PIN to do that. It ships separately so I had to wait until Friday when it arrived to access anything or put my card(s) in S-Pay. US Bank has a three step verification process: user designated User ID, followed by a user selected picture with audio (the dog picture barks) with a user assigned field naming the picture which has to be entered at each verification, and then a password. If someone hacks my account and can get past all that they deserve what's in it.

Adding the cards wasn't smooth sailing either. The credit card went in fine but at the end it listed options to validate the card for use with S-Pay. The only option was to call US Bank. I thought with a techish product like mobile payment being required to pick-up the phone was a bit old school. It may be a US Bank vs. an S-Pay thing. The debit card kept failing when I tried to put it in because with all the ID's I had to create I forgot to sign in to mobile banking and answer a half dozen questions to officially activate the card. It was fine after that and I got a different US Bank number to call to get permission to add the card.

App-wise S-Pay feels so much more logical and complete than A-Pay. In the example above where I had to call the bank their was a dialer icon to make the call from within the verification page I was on. The cards you enter are all swipeable and the last card used becomes the default until you use a different card. If you tap the card all your activity is shown and at the bottom there's a "customer service" expandable field with actionable links to the banks website and phone number. There's also a button that allows you to directly open your bank's app, use it, and when done you're returned to where you were in S-Pay. Once you enter your fingerprint at the sales terminal to make a payment there's a count down bar that shows S-Pay's reading so you know when it's ready and active. Little stuff but it makes S-Pay feel complete.

You can set how you want to access S-Pay for making payments in any combination - directly from the lock screen, directly from any home screen, or even when the screen's off. The last one's cool and works like taking a note on the display with S Pen when the phone's off. All are invoked by swiping from the bottom of the display. Leaving the above "off" requires you to launch the app yourself to make a payment. Pretty cool stuff.

So I had fun using it today for errands. I hit three magnetic terminals at Home Depot, Walmart, and Circle K. All three worked well and in one shot. The Walmart terminal was ancient and was literally held to its dock with duct tape. I was counseled by Walmart and Circle K staff that I can't use my phone to pay just as the register completed the sale. Priceless. I used it via NFC at Walgreens and it worked like Apple Pay and Softcard with no post recognition interrogation - just tap, pay, and done. Happy.

Needless to say because I have a choice I disabled Wallet/A-Pay. On AT&T you can't delete it because it's a pre-installed app. I'm not sorry to see it go and going back to it from Softcard was painful. Samsung's set a pretty high ease-of-use bar for Google to match. When I was setting up S-Pay a system pop-up asked if I wanted to replace A-Pay as my mobile payment choice. So people that want to use both will have to go in to settings to toggle between them.

Sorry for the long post. Mobile payments are going to be huge and I find this stuff interesting. Hope some others do to. ;)