Inside Apple Inc in Switzerland: No Watch yet, but Apple Pay unofficially working, strong demand for

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  • Reply 21 of 57
    suddenly newtonsuddenly newton Posts: 13,819member
    I know this is perhaps a very broad question, but what is the general Swiss consumer attitude towards Korean products? Do lots of people there drive Korean cars and use Samsung or LG smartclones?
  • Reply 23 of 57
    daveinpublicdaveinpublic Posts: 633member
    magman1979 wrote: »
    It just boggles my mind at how far behind the USA has allowed itself to get, considering that so many other industrialized countries in the world adopted chip & PIN tech DECADES ago!

    Up here in Canada, we've had C&P for, I think, more than a decade now...

    Well, the U.S. population is very widely spread. Infrastructure updates aren't as easy for us as say Germany or Spain. But, we aren't as far behind as we used to be, because we have ApplePay! I've enjoyed using it so far.
  • Reply 24 of 57
    ericthehalfbeeericthehalfbee Posts: 4,485member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by cnocbui View Post

     

     

    No contrast whatsoever.  Samsung Pay also uses NFC, so an S6 would be able to make an NFC contactless payment. The ability to use magstripe terminals is in addition to NFC capability.


     

    Sorry, the original comment was correct. It said "the magnetic card swipe emulation technology that Samsung acquired to bolster its own payment system is unlikely to work in many European style card readers". It didn't say "Samsung Pay will not work". If you have a CHIP card in Samsung Pay, and use it at a terminal the transaction will get denied and you'll be prompted to insert your card. This is EXACTLY what would happen if you try to swipe a CHIP card - you will be told to insert it instead.

     

    So Samsung Pay will NOT work with CHIP cards on any terminals that don't have NFC. But it will work on an NFC terminal using NFC. The question is, what additional prompts are required for you to tell your GS6 to use NFC and not CHIP/PIN? Do you have to tell it beforehand to use NFC instead of the magstripe technology? Or do you wait for it to decline and then try again?

     

    Samsung Pay is a clusterfukc, plain and simple.

  • Reply 25 of 57
    konqerrorkonqerror Posts: 685member

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MagMan1979 View Post

     

    It just boggles my mind at how far behind the USA has allowed itself to get, considering that so many other industrialized countries in the world adopted chip & PIN tech DECADES ago!

     


    Quote:

    Originally Posted by cnocbui View Post

     

    The incidence of Chip and Pin fraud appears to be utterly negligible and required flaws in terminal hardware together with considerable technical sophistication. 


     

    EMV was not desinged as a security measure. EMV was designed to reduce the number of expensive telephone calls European merchants had to make by allowing offline verification. It only has enough security to accomplish that.

     

    The humongous hole in EMV security is that credit card numbers are not protected at all. The standard was designed without online commerce in mind. Assume somebody pulled a Home Depot and stole everybody's credit card number. You can still use those cards online. All you do is guess the CVV2. So if you stole a million cards, you'd have 1,000 valid card pairs.

     

    In the US, nearly 100% of all transactions are done online, no matter the value. In fact, allowing offline verification makes the system less secure. If you make a purchase in San Francisco and an hour later the credit card company sees a card-present transaction in New York, they instantly block the card. In an EMV system, this may not happen until the merchants reconcile their transactions at the end of the day.

     

    EMV only solves a small portion of the problems we face today. The only reason why US has to follow with this flawed solution is because Europe already committed us to it.

  • Reply 26 of 57
    chmichmi Posts: 1member
    Lake of Brienz. This is where I live.. Thats my village in the picture, cool! ;)
  • Reply 27 of 57
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    This article reminds me, I haven't seen much of Relic on the forums of late. I do miss her Swiss perspective.
  • Reply 28 of 57
    profprof Posts: 84member
    Quote:



    Originally Posted by konqerror View Post

     

    EMV only solves a small portion of the problems we face today. The only reason why US has to follow with this flawed solution is because Europe already committed us to it.


     

    Seriously? As far as I can see MasterCard and VISA are a big part (2/3 to be exact) of EMV, so I don't think Europe has committed "you" to anything. Also there's nothing preventing US companies on designing a non-flawed system fixing all problems but how much exactly has happened while EMV provides a solid improvement over the "small portion of the problems we face today"?

  • Reply 29 of 57
    profprof Posts: 84member
    Quote:


    Citibank hasn't yet introduced the mobile SIM-like "chip-and-pin" cards that Europe has been using for decades;


    Right, decades... Regular credit cards with chips started rolling out not even a decade ago and only gained a bit of traction with the change of the chargeback guidelines in 2004/2005. Heck I don't even know the pin of my current MasterCard (which caused me a bit of pain in Asian countries where one can in many places only pay with pin) but was never a major problem so far in Europe, mostly due to the fact that the regular EC/Maestro bank cards are accepted everywhere so in the rare circumstance that a POS requires a pin a fallback will almost always be available. Contrary to common believes in the vast majority of cases the chip on a EC/Maestro card is not used at all for chip-and-pin kind of transactions although the majority of cards have it and many would even allow EMV payments with it since the Maestro system still requires the magnetic stripe; the chip is mostly used for other unrelated functionality like the completely bogus (well, unless you're one of the few smokers left and need that to verify your age, that is) German GeldKarte which is pre-paid and doesn't require a pin.

  • Reply 30 of 57
    anantksundaramanantksundaram Posts: 20,403member
    wizard69 wrote: »
    This article reminds me, I haven't seen much of Relic on the forums of late. I do miss her Swiss perspective.

    I vaguely recall that she had mentioned something about health issues (chemo?) at some point. I hope I am not getting my wires crossed! (Indeed, I hope I am totally wrong with my recall -- if so, I happily offer a thousand apologies to all).
  • Reply 31 of 57
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    I vaguely recall that she had mentioned something about health issues (chemo?) at some point. I hope I am not getting my wires crossed! (Indeed, I hope I am totally wrong with my recall -- if so, I happily offer a thousand apologies to all).

    She has cancer, and she's been posting regularly as of late
  • Reply 32 of 57
    frhoadsfrhoads Posts: 2member
    I haven't been in CH since November, but, unless it's closed since then, there's an Apple Store in Zug too.
  • Reply 33 of 57
    g-newsg-news Posts: 1,107member
    Just to chime in as one of the actual Swiss posters on this forum. The topic of high consumer prices was brought up. That's certainly a fact for most market segments, especially food, tourism, rents etc. but electronics? A little less so. In fact the only reason electronics would be more expensive here than in, say, Germany, is because the manufacturers just add 20% Swiss fantasy price hike that isn't based on any exchange rate or actual tax. Our VAT is only 8%, as opposed to 19-20% in the EU, there's a small recycling tax and a small tax on mass storage and that's it. Before the franc was uncoupled from the Euro again, it could be actually cheaper to buy a TV in Switzerland than in Germany, for example. It's not all that black an white.
    Apple unfortunately has historically been very good at the "Swiss tax" surcharge, along with other tech companies that apparently think it's ok to charge 10-20 more in Switzerland than the corresponding exchange rate would suggest. Olympus is one of them.

    The good thing about this all is that the minimum warranty here is 2 years, so if you upgrade every two years to sell the old mac etc on, you can forego AppleCare and save a few hundred quid, bringing the TCO down considerably.
  • Reply 34 of 57
    cnocbuicnocbui Posts: 3,613member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by MagMan1979 View Post

     



    She's a staunch supporter of that god forsaken Nokia RT tablet they released, and always professes it to be the best thing since sliced bread, it's a joke!

     

    Don't go calling someone the Pot unless you have some background.




    I have the background, thanks.  Relic is a tech gourmand and has her reasons for being interested in a wide variety of products from multiple different manufactureers.  She has an open and enquiring mind and is not saddled with the technology equivalent of racism, which a good many of the regular posters here seem to suffer from.

     

    You are the one who is clearly over-sensitive.  Being upset at someone because they think highly of an electronic gadget that you don't is pretty messed up.

  • Reply 35 of 57

    Quote:


      the high prices in Switzerland make the country a poor option for shoppers visiting from the surrounding countries of Europe.


    Great article! You forget though that the Swiss sales tax is only 8%, while the EU VAT is higher (20% in France, e.g.), and Apple seems to often apply a equal pre-tax price at the time of introduction. Subsequent xrate changes then drive a gap between international prices.  

    Doing a quick price check on the newest MacBook (1.2GHz,512SSD) in CH and France, the prices are 1,699CHF and €1,799, respectively. At current xrate that's about €175 cheaper in Switzerland (despite the strong franc), almost exactly the tax difference between the two countries. If Apple were to apply the same "equal pre-tax price" principle to the Apple Watch, then Switzerland would indeed be a great place to buy the watch, at least in Europe. 

     

    One hitch is that a shopper from France would probably be obliged to pay the VAT at the border. But would they? 

  • Reply 36 of 57
    anantksundaramanantksundaram Posts: 20,403member
    cnocbui wrote: »

    Being upset at someone because they think highly of an electronic gadget that you don't is pretty messed up.

    Couldn't agree more.

    You might start with yourself.
  • Reply 37 of 57
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton View Post



    I know this is perhaps a very broad question, but what is the general Swiss consumer attitude towards Korean products? Do lots of people there drive Korean cars and use Samsung or LG smartclones?

     

    Quite hard to answer. Samsung phones sell pretty well. Samsung and LG tv's very well too. Regarding cars though, I do see some Korean cars but that's definitely not the majority. Regarding your broad question, my country is as open as any regarding korean products. It doesn't really matter, you buy what you like and what you think will suite your needs. Just my two cents as a Swiss citizen living in Switzerland.

  • Reply 38 of 57
    radarthekatradarthekat Posts: 3,842moderator
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by G-News View Post



    Just to chime in as one of the actual Swiss posters on this forum. The topic of high consumer prices was brought up. That's certainly a fact for most market segments, especially food, tourism, rents etc. but electronics? A little less so. In fact the only reason electronics would be more expensive here than in, say, Germany, is because the manufacturers just add 20% Swiss fantasy price hike that isn't based on any exchange rate or actual tax. Our VAT is only 8%, as opposed to 19-20% in the EU, there's a small recycling tax and a small tax on mass storage and that's it. Before the franc was uncoupled from the Euro again, it could be actually cheaper to buy a TV in Switzerland than in Germany, for example. It's not all that black an white.

    Apple unfortunately has historically been very good at the "Swiss tax" surcharge, along with other tech companies that apparently think it's ok to charge 10-20 more in Switzerland than the corresponding exchange rate would suggest. Olympus is one of them.



    The good thing about this all is that the minimum warranty here is 2 years, so if you upgrade every two years to sell the old mac etc on, you can forego AppleCare and save a few hundred quid, bringing the TCO down considerably.



    If other markets, including real estate and worker pay, are more expensive in Switzerland, then it might not be a fantasy tax for companies like Apple that have a physical retail presence there.  

  • Reply 39 of 57
    stike vomitstike vomit Posts: 195member
    With the headline "Inside Apple Inc in Switzerland" I was expecting some deep insight into Apple's operations in Switzerland, and perhaps an interview with some of the local executives. Instead Danny Errant Digler visited an Apple store in Zurich.

    Is AI paying him for this 'piece'?
  • Reply 40 of 57
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by G-News View Post



    Just to chime in as one of the actual Swiss posters on this forum. The topic of high consumer prices was brought up. That's certainly a fact for most market segments, especially food, tourism, rents etc. but electronics? A little less so. In fact the only reason electronics would be more expensive here than in, say, Germany, is because the manufacturers just add 20% Swiss fantasy price hike that isn't based on any exchange rate or actual tax. Our VAT is only 8%, as opposed to 19-20% in the EU, there's a small recycling tax and a small tax on mass storage and that's it. Before the franc was uncoupled from the Euro again, it could be actually cheaper to buy a TV in Switzerland than in Germany, for example. It's not all that black an white.

    Apple unfortunately has historically been very good at the "Swiss tax" surcharge, along with other tech companies that apparently think it's ok to charge 10-20 more in Switzerland than the corresponding exchange rate would suggest. Olympus is one of them.



    The good thing about this all is that the minimum warranty here is 2 years, so if you upgrade every two years to sell the old mac etc on, you can forego AppleCare and save a few hundred quid, bringing the TCO down considerably.

    So Applecare for an iPhone adds - in the US - $100 on a product that is about $650.  That is 15%.  Sounds like a "Swiss fantasy price" of 15% above countries that do not require Apple to include Apple Care is about right.  Why do you think the extended warranty should be free - or is your extended warranty not the equivalent of Apple Care?

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