bocastephen

The only caveat I have now is an updated how-to from Apple (ie, the documents I referenced upthread), which now states the phone's region needs to be set to Japan in order to add a SUICA card - so my concern is being able to add a US payment card to Apple Pay when the region is set to Japan, or vice versa, losing the SUICA card and its value altogether from Apple Pay when I change the region back to the USA when I'm home, then change it again when I return to Tokyo later this month.

If changing the region away from Japan erases the card and its value, Apple is going to be hearing from me rather unpleasantly.

mrploddy

I will post my experiences on Sunday once I've got my new watch.

Got a day trip for Osaka to see a musical so calling in to Shinsaibashi on the way.

It's a ..... living a 7 hour highway bus ride from your nearest Apple store!

-mrploddy

mrploddy

Just to share the knowledge :-

I installed an app off the Japanese app store called Giftee.

Its interesting because it specialises in low value gift certificates.

The ones of interest are -

Family Mart
Lawson
Basket Robbins
Starbucks

You can buy gift certificates with Apple Pay - I was able to use the app to buy a 500 yen Basket robbins certificate in English settings with my UK card via Apple Pay.

The app is currently running a promo where you effectively get what you bought again for free - I now have 2 x 500 yen Basket Robbins certificates to use XD.

Obviously there is NO ENGLISH but for those who can navigate the app its a convenient way of paying for low value purchases if youre prepared to navigate it.

-mrploddy

bocastephen

Here is my experience:

1. pickup - the pickup process was easy, lots of English speaking staff at the Apple store. They refunded my purchase then recharged it to remove the tax, vs trying to refund just the tax

2. setup - the phone is, of course, identical to any iPhone bought in the world except for the active Felica chip, however the phone defaults to Japan as the region, but you can select English. So far the setup was easy, although I'm having some issues seeing the entire phone contents in iTunes which started after it was setip, but that's probably another issue

3. Apple Pay - I was able to add all of my US cards (Amex Plat, SPG Amex, TD Business Debit, TD Personal ATM/Debit), except one - Chase Business Bold, which is not supported on Apple Pay regardless

4. SUICA - adding SUICA is very easy - you buy a plastic SUICA card at the airport, or any JR ticket booth, open Apple Pay, add a new card, select SUICA (your phone must be set to Japan for the region, and the software must be updated), place the phone on top of the plastic SUICA card, and the entire value including your card deposit is moved onto the phone. I tested adding value from my Amex Plat card, and the transaction went through just fine. You can add the SUICA app from the AppStore, but it's in Japanese only

5. Apps - you can change the App Store country to match your account settings regardless of the phone's region - the first app I tried to download was a US app, and there was a popup to change the store to the US one, and it worked fine from that point

Now for the (potential) downside - no one can tell me what will happen to that SUICA card or its value once you change the phone region, and everyone in the Apple store including some expat staff were equally perplexed and figured the card would just vanish from the phone and take any residual value with it. Not good. So, as a caveat, I would suggest burning down your balance to near 0 before departing Japan and changing the region, so if that happens, you won't lose much. Worst case, you just buy a plastic SUICA card on each arrival and transfer it to the phone for the duration of the stay and just try and burn down as much of it as possible. Once I depart on Monday, I will give it a try and see where my SUICA card goes after the region change and report back.

mrploddy

Was the add value via Apple Pay or via direct CC transaction ?

Good to have confirmation it plays nice.

I have read somewhere in Japanese that if you change phones you need to surrender your current Suica and re-add. You cant move Suica's between phones.

bocastephen

I'm not sure of the difference but it was charged to the Amex card linked to my apple pay account.

One embarrassing issue to report - an app I was using to transfer my old Line messages triggered a restore on the phone and voila - all my stored apple pay cards including my SUICA with a Y1200 balance vanished. So now I need to take the plastic card with its serial number to the station in the probably hopeless chance they can recover the balance off that serial number and transfer it to a new card I can re add to Apple pay.

LCUF

Ouch. Did you try to do a full backup of your iPhone first? Since you registered the SUICA with Apple Pay hopefully JR East might be able to do something. Typically if you lose the SUICA card you are out of luck unless yours is one of those "name registered" type where you can verify personal information with JR East to recover the account.

I would think if they can tie your iTunes account to SUICA account then it is possible to recover. I mean, banks can see you registered your CCs with Apple Pay and tie the information together. Cross fingers.

Steve M

That's not the only difference. iPhones sold in Japan also have the mandatory loud shutter sound effect when taking pictures, which cannot be turned off.

mrploddy

Have new apple watch - heres my obs.

1) Make sure iphone and apple watch are up to date or they wont let you pass go.

2) Region doesnt matter - I am on UK and could still register a Suica

3) Yes for a named Suica - if you have problems with a blank suica from what I can understand theres not much they can do to help - having a named suica means you can reload the suica after phone change / reload

4) No issues with foreign card.

rustykettel

Good to know. ^ Is your iPhone a 7/7+ or earlier model?

mrploddy

Ok my setiup is

Phone - Iphone SE 64GB Rose Gold
Watch - Apple Watch Series 2 Aluminium (Japan model)
Region Setting - UK
Apple Pay - UK based AMEX card

I initially had problems adding the Suica to my watch and it said that my iOS was out of date but what it meant was the WatchOS was out of date. Make sure that Software Update tab on both Watch and the iPhone.

The Japanese guidance from my understanding appears to imply that if you put an unregistered Suica on the phone that they can't really help you.

I strongly recommend registering it - get a friendly Japanese person to help you - its an easy form relatively but you need to write your name in Katakana. You also need a Japanese post code and phone number but you can use your hotel details I suspect.

The advantage of it being registered is it appears that if you move phones you can "restore" a Suica because on the initial screen there is a button to log in to your mobile suica account OR register a new one. Also with a registered suica there is a "service" mode (maybe the unregistered has it I'm not sure) where if you have issues you put it in service mode and give it to station staff and they can resolve issues for you.

So far only 1 field test at 7/11 where it worked fine - the Transit Pass feature is awesome didn't even need to double tap the button it pinged as soon as my wrist went near the reader.

Only slight downer is the second hand price of last years watch has dropped 20,000 yen in 2 months .

bocastephen

It was strange to say the least, but even stranger that while the JR station agent was reading the Apple Pay manual to figure out what to do, I opened Apple Wallet while waiting for her, and it prompted me to re-add "a previously registered SUICA card", and there it was - fully restored with the previous balance. I tried re-adding the physical card the night before, and no dice, but since then I did an encrypted backup and perhaps that triggered something to let me re-add old cards.

Since I've had enough surprises on this trip for awhile, I used a Tokyo Banana gift purchase to knock the card to Y0.00, and I can recharge when I get back in a few weeks to see what happens after I change regions.

So, the only drawback is that firecracker-like shutter sound, which appears to only be shockingly loud when using another app to take photos, or portrait mode with the native camera app - when using the normal native camera app modes, it's just a gentle 'ding' instead of a shutter sound.

bocastephen

Now that I'm back stateside, one final update - I changed the region to USA, the phone did some quick update, I needed to re-register with Siri, and the SUICA card in my Apple Wallet is still there and can do an online check for its current balance, and the SUICA app itself runs fine.

shuigao

Are you still not able to turn off the shutter sound? I got some conflicting info from other forums that says the shutter sound restriction is linked to the SIM card rather than the phone (i.e., putting a non-Japanese SIM card into a Japanese phone sometimes allows you to turn off the shutter sound).

LCUF

Thank you and mrploddy for the updates!