Hello, maybe anyone know anything about HCE (Host card emulation) feature on iOS? As far as I read, it's not possible to achieve this functionality on iOS, but maybe there are plans to implement that? Or maybe it's clear that it wont be allowed to be used at all? Thanks:)
HCE in iPhone
I would doubt there are plans to do it. As Apple develops both device and iOS, and does not licence iOS (contrary to Android) there is no real interest to go HCE. In addition, security and data protection are better guaranteed with Secure Element in device. So my personal opinion is that answer is no, "never".
I found this article interesting: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/host-card-emulation-secure-element,28804.html
Hi.Did you find any solution for this?
Apps will be able to offer NFC payments without using Apple Pay or the Wallet app through Host Card Emulation.
HCE is now available on iOS 17.4, albeit only for banking and wallet apps in the European Economic Area running on an iPhone.
You can read the details here: https://developer.apple.com/support/hce-payment-transactions-in-payment-apps/
Developers will need to obtain a special entitlement, and the apps can only run (including for testing) on iPhones physically located in the EEA.
It's all very well to open up the HCE for banks, but what about other ways of using the HCE. There are companies in the Americas and Asia leveraging Apple's NFC HCE for access control, integrating access badges/cards into Apple Wallet. Is this functionality available in Europe? If not, what's the reason? Can this be accomplished using Apple's Secure Element? I haven't come across any information addressing this.
I’m developing an app that uses Host Card Emulation (HCE) and card emulation to interact with NFC readers for product verification. We’ve obtained the necessary HCE entitlements from Apple, and everything works perfectly in our local builds. However, once we deploy the app to TestFlight, the HCE functionality stops working.
Has anyone else experienced this issue or found a solution?
I am experiencing exactly the same. For me it is the call to CardSession.isEligible(), returns True when deployed via Xcode and False when obtaining the App via TestFlight or AppStore(Production).
This is using an EU phone/ iCloud Account.
I feel it would be useful for Apple to provide more information on what is going on 'under-the-hood' when CardSession.isEligible() is being called; is it checking an IP? GPS location? A credit-card/payment information to determine whether the user/phone is EU/EEA eligible? Because it is not the Location set in Media/Purchases - this makes no difference!