One could be more forgiving and attribute bad UX to "teething problems", but not when it comes to the world's largest company and expansion launch (rather than greenfield ops).
Apple should have sorted all the issues I am raising here before launching in the US, let alone Europe - they have adequate resources and skills. Them not doing it is a continuing of their typical laissez-faire bravado.
Think about it: it's a no-brainer to introduce proper "Parental Control" on iPad, allowing to set time limits in general or even per app. Apple has been continuously ignoring hundreds of thousands of such requests (and not letting third parties to implement
that feature).
Card selection
When you have multiple cards registered with Apple Pay, selecting - on the fly - the one you want to use at the point of interaction is not intuitive and fast at all. When you are at a Tube gate at 8am with half a dozen of frustrated Oyster users breathing
down your neck (and another half a dozen passing through the gates left and right), card select sucks. I am not sure there is currently a way to make one of the cards a default one (it seems to me that Apple Pay defaults to the first card I added in) - if
there is, it's not obvious at all.
TouchID
I wrote before that the current process sucks: holding your thumb on TouchID at the Tube gate (or even by the in-store terminal) is geeky and dorky. Apple should have allowed for card selection AND TouchID authentication to be performed BEFORE you present
the phone to the terminal, giving you 10-15 seconds to complete the transaction. That would cure the "sweaty fingers" problem too.
Come on, Cupertino - you can do (much) better than that. Has the last UX expert left the room and switched off the light?..
Dead battery
Apple makes incredible products when it comes to hardware. They also make beautiful software, but in many cases with the focus on visual elegance rather than practicality. With Apple Pay, you are stuck (and stung,
in case of TfL use in London) when your battery dies (and you followed Apple's advice to "leave your wallet at home"). Unlike some other smartphones, iPhone's NFC does not work without juice. What could be done? "Simples!" Leave some small battery reserve
for NFC (internal logic), even when the battery "dies", i.e. when the screen goes black, linking Apple Pay is such case to a default card.
Let's see if Apple Watch addresses at least the first two problems - back soon.