iOS 18’s Tap to Provision feature has immense potential for accessibility.
A recent report from Filipe Espósito of 9to5 Mac details Apple’s “Tap to Provision” feature coming soon to iOS 18. As Espósito writes, the new Apple Pay software is intended to “[make] it much easier for users to add their credit and debit cards to Apple Pay in the Wallet app.” Espósito further notes the functionality already is seemingly working “for some users” who are running the latest developer beta on their iPhone.
According to Espósito, Tap to Provision is touted by Apple as a more convenient—and accessible—way to add credit and debit cards to the Wallet app. The method works by simply tapping a card to the back of one’s phone, thereby eliminating the process of manually entering the card’s information and/or taking a picture of it. Espósito writes, per user reports, Tap to Provision is now the default way of adding a new card.
“When the user taps the button to add a new card in the Wallet app, a message asks the user to hold the iPhone close to the chip on the card,” Espósito said of Tap to Provision’s mechanics for adding a new card to Wallet. “The iPhone then identifies all the numbers on the card and automatically transfers them to the app. Of course, users still need to verify their card with the bank in order to complete the process.”
Espósito emphasizes there are caveats with Tap to Provision. Notably, Apple says won’t be available in all markets come the operating system’s official launch, but predictably hasn’t specified which markets are missing. In the meantime, Espósito said not every card supports Tap to Provision; in certain instances, iOS 18 displays a message reading the card’s network—i.e., Visa, MasterCard, or American Express—“does not currently support contactless methods for adding cards,” per Espósito.
I’ve extolled the accessibility virtues of Apple Pay innumerable times for this column, as well as in stories for other outlets, over the years since its 2014 debut. I won’t rehash those reasons here, but suffice it to say that Tap to Provision strengthens Apple Pay’s stature as the most accessible digital payments platform on the market. Both things can be true: Apple Pay obviously buffers the value proposition for the iPhone, thereby helping Apple make more money by selling more phones. By the same token, it’s true Apple Pay buffers the value proposition for the iPhone in a usability context because, given Apple Pay’s accessibility merits (which include its hooks into iOS’s accessibility features), a disabled person wanting more accessible ways to pay for things could plausibly choose an iPhone in large part due to the very high accessibility of Apple Pay.
As to Tap to Provision’s accessibility merit, Apple purportedly considered it. To reiterate Espósito’s reporting, Tap to Provision exists because Apple thought there must be a better (read: accessible) way for people to add cards to their Wallet. This is pure speculation on my part, but at a technical level, I wonder if Tap to Provision is built atop APIs and other code similar to those which power Back Tap, the accessibility feature that lets users tap the back of their phone to trigger various actions. If my hunch indeed is correct, then it means Apple, like with Type to Siri, is leveraging technologies rooted in accessibility and “graduating” them to more mainstream applications. It doesn’t belittle accessibility as niche, rather it provides further evidence that much technological innovation begins with the needs of the disability community. In other words, it proves accessibility truly is for everyone.
Rather than use the system keyboard to enter a card’s details, which surely can be a daunting test of cognition, as well as visual and fine-motor acuities, depending on one’s needs and tolerances, Tap to Provision does the work by cleverly melding hardware and software in such a way it asserts itself as another de-facto iOS accessibility feature.