You Can Now Use Apple Pay On NYC’s MTA Transit

You can now use Apple Pay with New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority as of May 31. You’ll be able to use Apple Pay with the new tap-to-pay fare system on the buses in Staten Island and the 4, 5, and 6 subway lines between Grand Central Station in Manhattan and Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center in Brooklyn. 

To use Apple Pay on the MTA transit, you'll need an iPhone 6s or later with iOS 12.3 and watchOS 5.2.1 installed. After you've registered a credit or debit card, you can then take advantage of the new Express Transit NFC feature, which allows you to tap your iPhone or Apple Watch against the fare reader to pay and go. 

The system is currently limited to single-ride passes at this time. However, additional fare options are due to introduced by late 2020, when the MTA expects to have rolled out Apple Pay on all subway lines and buses.

New York City's MTA Will Support Apple Pay Starting Early Summer

New Yorker’s will soon be able to use your iPhone as your MetroCard. During Apple’s Q2 earnings call, Tim Cook revealed that New York City's transit system would support Apple Pay in early summer. He didn't say just which services and routes would be covered, but the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's tap-to-pay OMNY system is supposed to launch May 31st with coverage on the 4, 5 and 6 subway lines as well as Staten Island buses.

The MTA will only support tapping on a per-ride basis until the feature is available across the entire subway and bus systems in late 2020, so you'll still have to pull out a MetroCard if you use routes that aren't covered. 

NYC Subways Get NFC Equipped Fare Systems Starting Late 2018

The New York City transit payment system is about to be to modernized. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is green lit a hefty $573 million contract that will install NFC-equipped fare systems across NYC. The plan should start installing readers in 600 buses and 500 subway turnstiles starting in late 2018, so you may tap your phone or card sooner than you might have thought with a 2021 rollout. The rollout won't reach every corner of the city (plus Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North trains) until late 2020. MetroCards will continue to work through 2023, so don't worry about rushing to replace your phone or bank cards. The new system shouldn't be picky about payment types, either, so you can expect Android Pay, Apple Pay and Samsung Pay among others.

Sony Holding PlayStation Meeting In September

Sony has announced a PlayStation meeting on September 7 in New York City at the PlayStation Theatre. The PlayStation Neo is likely to be announced at this event, though exact specifications haven’t been announced. What do you think ? 

NYC Subway Cars Will Have WiFi And USB Ports In 2020

The New York City subway system is preparing up for a major overhaul to bring a”modernized look and feel” to lighting, wayfinding and subway cars by the year 2020. Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's $27 billion, five-year plan to add 1,025 new subway cars, more informative digital screens, better security features and underground  WiFi and USB charging ports in the cars and stations. "People want to work, and they want their device to work 24 hours a day," Governor Cuomo during the event at the New York Transit Museum in Brooklyn. "They don't want to have to look up. There has to be WiFi, and there need to be charging ports." The new subway cars will sport "full color digital customer information displays," as well as new digital ad space. The subway cars will also offer wider doors to expedite boarding times and up to 750 of new cars will feature an open-ended design that allows for more passenger space. This announcement also included plans to create a new, unified design standard for all subway stations, starting with some extensive renovations at 3 stations across the city. Like the train cars, those stations will be getting WiFi, improved cellular connections and new digital signage with real-time updates at entrances and count down clocks on the platform. If the first phase of renovations is successful, there are plans to upgrade another 170 stations in the future. What do you think of this ? As a New Yorkers I am beyond excited for this and hope it comes to pass.

Google’s Sidewalk Labs Brings Free Wi-Fi To NYC

Google’s city-focused innovation company, Sidewalk Labs is going forward with “Project Sidewalk,” which is a project representing a plan to create a district in which it can begin to trial self-driving cars, Wi-Fi solutions, new public transport, and other city planning advances that modern technology make possible. The first product is LinkNYC, which is turning more than 7000 old public pay phones into kiosks providing free Wi-Fi, video and voice calling, and access to emergency and other city services across New York City; ‘Links’ are currently being installed across NYC with more cities to come in the future. 

Microsoft Opening Flagship Store In NYC

Microsoft will soon be opening their own flagship store in NYC. The store will be a huge 5 story 22,269 square foot retail space will open October 26th. This new shopping outlet, which has been in development for nearly a year, is located at 677 Fifth Avenue, only just a few blocks away from Apple's iconic 5th Ave store. In the store you can expect to get hands on time with Windows 10 devices, the Xbox One and much more. Microsoft is also said to be opening another flagship store in Sydney, Australia, but store would open until November 12th.

Microsoft Opening A New Store In NYC This Fall

Microsoft is getting ready to open a flagship retail store this Fall on New York's Fifth Avenue. Microsoft Extended Experts Team member Gokan Ozcifci tweeted the image below, which show the storefront at 677 5th Ave with a sign that says "Microsoft Store Coming Fall 2015".The company has 100 outlets in the US, Puerto Rico and Canada though most of those are those Microsoft-branded store within a store sections you see at Best Buy and Staples. This will be its first flagship location, just blocks from one of Apple's iconic stores in New York City. Looks like Microsoft is pushing stores. Are they trying to compete with Apple with stores ? What do you think ? Will this Microsoft store make a difference ? 

You can Soon Use Apple Pay To Pay For Your Parking Ticket In NYC

New Yorkers may soon be able to pay parking tickets using Apple Pay. Currently parking tickets can be paid online, via mail, on in person at a courthouse. The city’s finance department is supposedly looking to change this up and could embrace Apple Pay in the process. Seeing as how many online payments are now carried out using iOS devices, this sounds like a shrewd move on the part of NYC decision makers, who are eager to cut down on the $600 million in added fines and fees which result from defaulted ticket payments each year.

Amazon To Open Physical Retail Store

Amazon soon plans to open a retail store in New York City. A report from Wall Street Journal says that Amazon plans to open its first physical store, which will be located in midtown Manhattan near the Empire State Building, in time for the holiday shopping season. The store will function as an extension of Amazon's online business, serving as a mini warehouse. Customers will be able to return products and pickup online orders. Its also likely that Amazon is doing this so show off there own products such as the Fire Phone, Fire Tv and Kindles, similar to how Apple shows off its products in stores.

Apple Wins Patent For Famous NYC Glass Store Design

Back In August 2010 Apple applied for a trademark related to the famous Fifth Avenue Apple Store in New York City. While that trademark is still pending, Apple has been granted a design patent for the same structure today by the US Patent and Trademark Office. It's a structure that the late CEO Steve Jobs was passionate about and was actually credited on the patent as one of the inventors/designers.Today they were granted the patent.