A year after his arrival on Android, dematerialized metro tickets are arriving on the iPhone. As revealed by our colleagues Parisian A few days ago, Apple and -le-de-France Mobilités finally found a way to make the iPhone compatible with the RATP network after initial heated discussions. We especially remember the shock statement from Valle Pacere, the president of the particularle-de-France region, who told Apple officials what to do not want the residents of Il-de-France “Switch to Android”.

01net.com contacted -le-de-France Mobilités to learn more about the arrival of Navajivan in the Apple ecosystem. There will be two important phases in the coming weeks, we exclusively unveil them.

January 20: Recharge iPhone Navigo Card

From 20 January, Le application ViaNavigo The iPhone will sometimes be equipped with an extremely useful function for passengers and users who are tired of queuing at a RATP terminal at the beginning of the month. By placing your physical Navigo pass on the back of your iPhone, a Navigo pass owner will be able to top it up by purchasing, for example, a day, weekly or monthly pass. No need to go to a terminal, everything will be directly from the iPhone, without leaving ViaNavigo. Owner of a reloadable card Navigo Easy One can buy single tickets directly before taking the metro and tram or bus and save time.

If you are on Android and you envy the arrival of such a function, then know that it is already possible to do the same work on your smartphone from September 2019. A terminal with only one NFC chip is required.

Read also: How to top up your Navigo pass directly from your smartphone

On iOS, the use of NFC is heavily regulated by Apple’s operating system, developers. To keep the right to read the contents of a Navigo card and register a new subscription, teams from rightle-de-France Mobilités use an API provided by Apple. They explain to us that no data is stored in smartphones and it is simply an exchange of information between the device and the card. To our knowledge, there are no other cities offering the same system. Elsewhere, card recharging is not done online and magnetically.

Finally, warle-de-France Mobilités warned us that the iPhone XR, XS and XS Max would be incompatible at first. At least one iPhone 7 must run iOS 13 for this function to work.

IPhone will soon replace metro tickets

Later, Apple and -le-de-France Mobilités will enter the business. Develops from the month of February The paris But, according to our information, no timetable has yet been set. Therefore the wait may be a bit longer. When asked by 01net.com, -le-de-France Mobilités states that “Regular exchanges with Apple take place on technical (verifier, software, data, etc.) and contractual aspects”. A solution has not yet been found and will be announced later, when both players are ready to communicate. Two possibilities seem realistic to us: adding a virtual newcomer pass as an Apple Pay card (we’ll buy tickets from the wallet) or an NFC card in Pathé Gaumont style. The first scenario we find most probable.

In 2019, the -le-de-France region accused Apple of claiming a commission to integrate the Navigo Pass into its iPhones. The region then insisted that it would not pay a single penny to the California giant. We do not know today whether this promise will be kept or not.

Given the complexity of the Ile-de-France system (the Calipo protocol used by terminals requires smartphone manufacturers to physically store tickets to a secure chip, making it impossible to transfer them to another terminal ), This partnership with Apple, its launch will be a little miracle. Paris can be a unique city in terms of dematerialization of public transport.

Samsung’s iPhones and Galaxy compatible since September 2019 should become the ultimate accessories to live around the region (other Android mobiles are compatible but require a recent Orange SIM card to store titles). We imagine that other French cities are likely to turn to Apple to benefit from such favors.

In the coming weeks, expect new communications from the dele-de-France region and Apple. 01net.com will return to the question, especially from a technical standpoint, when more information is sent to us.