How to test NFC in iPhone 12?

Does it work if you try to use Apple Pay in a store?

romad wrote:

What triggered this is I wanted to see if my blocking wallet worked and thought it did when I could not detect the cards inside it. However, I then discovered my iPhone couldn't detect them outside either! Of course, maybe the NFC chips in the cards aren't activated.

The phone isn't designed to detect credit cards. It just doesn't work that way.

However, you can still test whether or not your blocking wallet works by trying to use a card on a tap-to-pay terminal while in the wallet.

Just as an aside, cards stored in your iPhone Wallet are safe from RFID scanning.

romad wrote:

I don't use Apple Pay as, being old school, I primarily use cash.

What triggered this is I wanted to see if my blocking wallet worked and thought it did when I could not detect the cards inside it. However, I then discovered my iPhone couldn't detect them outside either! Of course, maybe the NFC chips in the cards aren't activated.

NFC won't detect the chip in a credit card. NFC is a contactless payment system, which your cards can be used at merchants OR if you use Apple Pay, your phone. If you thought the phone would respond to a chip on the credit card for recognition, that's not the way it works.

Tap to Pay only works with apps that support it, like Square, Venmo, PayPal, etc. You must also have a merchant account and Apple Account established as well. I have an account with Square and I can take payments using tap today on my iPhone.

Apple Cash, for example, does NOT support tap to pay for receiving money.

So which app are you using to receive payments?

If you are talking about adding a credit card your Wallet app using tap to pay then realize that iOS 17 does NOT support this feature. You must be running iOS 18.