It’s actually been a little while since I’ve been able to focus on the smartphone beat instead of home theaters and tablets. A lot of this has to do with the focus of Pocket-lint as a publication — but on top of that, there are trends in the industry itself. The big players have settled into predictable release cycles, and just aren’t pushing hardware specs the way they used to. They’re so kamikaze on AI that they’re ignoring common demands like two-day battery life, or a telephoto camera that actually works in concert lighting.
Recently, though, I ran into an iPhone bug so severe that there was no trouble pitching a story on the idea. Its consequences are bad enough, but there also doesn’t appear to be any fix in sight, at least until after iOS 27 goes live.
Wallet apps
Trivia challenge
From tap-to-pay to boarding passes — how well do you really know the world
of digital wallets?
Mobile PayHistorySecurityFeaturesBrands
Which company launched the first widely adopted mobile wallet app for consumers in
the United States?
Correct! PayPal was the pioneer of digital payments for consumers, long
before Apple Pay or Google Pay existed. Founded in 1998, PayPal’s mobile app gave millions of users
their first taste of a digital wallet experience.
Not quite — the answer is PayPal. While Apple and Google later dominated
tap-to-pay, PayPal was the original mass-market digital wallet, launching its mobile app and
revolutionizing peer-to-peer payments well before the smartphone era took hold.
What near-field communication standard does Apple Pay use to process contactless
payments at terminals?
Correct! Apple Pay relies on NFC (Near Field Communication), which
allows your iPhone or Apple Watch to communicate with a payment terminal at very short range — typically
within a few centimeters. It’s the same standard used by contactless credit cards.
Not quite — the answer is NFC (Near Field Communication). NFC operates
at 13.56 MHz and is the global standard for tap-to-pay transactions. Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung
Pay all use NFC to securely transmit payment data to compatible terminals.
What security method does Apple Pay use instead of transmitting your real card
number during a transaction?
Correct! Apple Pay uses a Device Account Number (a token) stored in the
Secure Element chip, so your actual card number is never shared with merchants or transmitted during
payment. This makes it significantly harder for fraudsters to steal your card details.
Not quite — the answer is Device Account Number tokenization. Rather
than sharing your real card number, Apple Pay generates a unique token tied to your device. Even if a
retailer’s system is breached, your actual card information remains completely protected.
Google’s mobile wallet service was rebranded to ‘Google Wallet’ in 2022, but what
was it primarily called between 2018 and 2022?
Correct! Between 2018 and 2022, Google’s payment service was known as
Google Pay, which itself had replaced Android Pay. In 2022, Google restructured the service, retiring
the Google Pay app in the US and relaunching the classic Google Wallet branding.
Not quite — the answer is Google Pay. Google has rebranded its payment
services several times: from Google Wallet (2011) to Android Pay (2015) to Google Pay (2018) and back to
Google Wallet (2022). It’s been quite the naming journey!
Which of the following can typically be stored in Apple Wallet beyond just payment
cards?
Correct! Apple Wallet is much more than a payment tool — it can store
boarding passes, movie and event tickets, loyalty cards, hotel keys, transit passes, and even driver’s
licenses in supported US states. It’s designed to be a true digital replacement for your physical
wallet.
Not quite — the answer is boarding passes, event tickets, and ID cards.
Apple Wallet supports a wide range of passes beyond payments, including airline boarding passes, concert
tickets, loyalty cards, hotel room keys, and government-issued IDs in select regions.
In what year did Apple Pay officially launch to the public?
Correct! Apple Pay launched in October 2014 alongside the iPhone 6 and
iPhone 6 Plus — the first iPhones to feature an NFC chip. It debuted in the United States with support
from major banks and retailers, marking a pivotal moment for mobile payments.
Not quite — Apple Pay launched in October 2014. It was introduced by Tim
Cook at Apple’s September 2014 event and required the new iPhone 6 series hardware, which included the
NFC chip necessary for contactless payments for the first time on an iPhone.
Samsung Pay had a unique advantage over Apple Pay and Google Pay at launch because
it could work at older payment terminals that lacked NFC. What technology made this possible?
Correct! Samsung Pay used Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST), which
mimics the magnetic stripe on a traditional credit card, allowing it to work on standard card swipe
terminals. This gave Samsung Pay a significant compatibility advantage, though MST was phased out of
newer Samsung devices by 2021.
Not quite — the answer is Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST). This
clever technology let Samsung Pay send payment signals to old-school magnetic stripe readers, not just
NFC terminals. It was a real differentiator for Samsung, though the feature was eventually discontinued
as NFC became near-universal.
What authentication method does Google Wallet use on Android devices to confirm a
user’s identity before completing a payment?
Correct! Google Wallet requires the device screen lock — whether that’s
a fingerprint, face unlock, PIN, or pattern — to authenticate payments. This ensures that even if your
phone is lost or stolen, nobody can make contactless payments without bypassing your lock screen.
Not quite — the answer is the device screen lock, including fingerprint,
PIN, or face unlock. Google Wallet ties payment authorization to Android’s built-in security layer,
meaning your biometrics or lock credentials act as the key to your digital wallet every time you pay.
Your Score
/ 8
Thanks for playing!
The Apple Wallet debacle
That’s right, the Wallet app
It all began last night, as of this writing. I was helping my son take a bath, putting on a Spotify soundtrack as per usual. Turns out he’s a fan of Miami Horror. While the music was booming, though, I noticed that the battery on my iPhone 16 Pro was draining far faster than usual. At the rate it was going, it was going to die before I made it to my own bedtime.
On top of that, the phone was unusually warm to the touch. I didn’t think too much of this at first, but the heat kept intensifying. By the time I was climbing into bed, it was out of control, and then my phone crashed — hard. The screen went black without warning. In trying to revive it, I was stuck on a spinning white wheel for what must’ve been a minute or longer. The phone did come back to life, yet I was mystified about what had triggered any of this.
My first clue came from the fact that earlier that day, I’d been dealing with storage filling up. That made no sense to me, since I’m normally diligent about keeping apps and downloads under control. I’d gone ahead and deleted some unused items anyway, only to find that I was back at square one a few hours later.
Post-crash, I visited Settings -> General -> iPhone Storage to diagnose the situation. Turns out the app with the biggest footprint was Apple Wallet — that’s right, the normally tiny iOS feature you use for groceries, event passes, or filling up with gas. It had somehow inflated to over 10GB, eclipsing Spotify and WhatsApp combined. The next day, I took another glimpse and found that it was over 13GB. That’s mindblowing when you consider that the first-gen iPhone couldn’t hold more than 8GB.
As it turns out, people have been complaining about this exact glitch since at least January 2026, going by a Reddit thread on the topic. You may be able to temporarily solve the issue by deleting any unused passes and rebooting your iPhone. In extreme cases, a factory reset might be necessary, but there’s no guarantee the issue won’t recur somewhere down the line.
Is there any hope of a permanent fix?
Reply hazy, try again
Possibly, but I wouldn’t count on it in the next few weeks. Apple hasn’t made any public statements about the problem, which isn’t surprising, as it rarely ever acknowledges bugs beyond patch notes. More importantly, Apple has pushed several major updates to iOS 26 since January, and I was already running the latest — 26.6 — when my phone crashed.
Given that Apple is likely pouring most of its resources into September’s iOS 27, we could be waiting until then for some sort of resolution. That seems plausible in fact, considering that apart from Siri AI, the biggest emphasis of the upgrade will be on optimization. That includes tweaks like faster app launches, better CPU scheduling, and revised search indexing. There’s nothing specifically targeting storage usage — yet this bug seems like it would be hard to miss in the process.
