If you’re headed to Toronto, this should come in handy.
TTC subway stations within the city have recently added pay for Apple Pay’s Express Mode, allowing riders to hold their iPhone or Apple Watch near the reader at the turnstile stations to pay their fee. The Express Mode feature allows the devices to be authenticated without having to use Face ID, Touch ID, or a passcode, and also works for up to five hours after an iPhone has run out of battery power.
As noted by Toronto resident Andrew Escobar, it is still not possible to add a PRESTO card to the Apple Wallet app, so Express Mode is limited to credit and debit cards added to the Wallet app for now. Public documents related to recent TTC meetings suggest that the PRESTO card will gain Apple Wallet support later this year.
Users can add a credit or debit card for use with Apple Pay to their Wallet app by tapping the plus sign in the top-right corner, and following the on-screen instructions. To set a payment card as the default option for Express Mode, open the Settings app on the iPhone, tap Wallet & Apple Pay, tap Express Transit Card, and select a card.
Prior to this, a number of payment readers within the TTC system had already worked with Apple Pay’s Express Mode.
If you’ve had a chance to try this out in Toronto, please let us know about your experience in the comments.