Silicon Valley’s all-in-one Clipper shipping card finally adds Apple Pay

by

Silicon Valley may seem like a bright beacon of technological progress to some viewers, but the natives know it can be hit and miss strangely – such as how the San Francisco Bay Area has long been physical the ‘touch-pay’ card that will allow you to practice virtually any form of public transportation, and yet never allow you to touch your phone or smart watch to do the same.

To this day – because starting today, the Clipper Card supports Apple Pay, including its Express mode, where you don’t need to wake up your device or open an app first.

Now you can use almost any recent iPhone or Apple Watch to board BART (serving East Bay and San Francisco), Muni (San Francisco’s light rail and tram system), Caltrain (which connects San Francisco to the peninsula and South Bay), VTA (South Bay buses and light rail) and even the ferry. (Find instructions here.)

Here’s a pretty good picture of the interconnected transit systems in the SF Bay area.
Alex Li’s map

This means that you travel virtually throughout the bay, urban and suburban, without taking a wallet out of your purse or pocket – especially since many of these vehicles are also suitable for bicycles on board. It’s not as significant as when Apple Pay came to Suica from Japan in 2016, because the rail network spans an entire country, but it’s a big issue for tech workers and natives like me.

Or if I ever worked in an office again. There is not too much demand at the moment! But I used to take Caltrain and either BART or Muni to work every day, and Clipper was my constant companion.

There are a few more caveats: you can upload any given Clipper card to a single device, so you can’t share it on an iPhone and an Apple Watch at the same time. (However, you can only use two cards and accept a variety of Clipper passes, not just cash.) You’ll also need an iPhone 8 and an Apple Watch Series 3 or later, and Apple warns that you should “keep the plastic Card Clipper for using the Bay Wheels and RTC bike [disability discount] tariff inspection card. ”

Android users with Clipper cards should see similar capabilities through Google Pay later this spring, and you should be able to buy a card directly through Google Maps.

Source