How to disable Wallet's automatic pop-up near card readers?

Guided Access can be a useful workaround because it locks your iPhone into the app that is displaying the QR code or barcode. With that app held in the foreground, Wallet should not be able to take over the screen when the phone is brought near an NFC/payment terminal.

Set it up once

iphone > Settings > Accessibility > Guided Access > enable Guided Access > Tap Passcode Settings > choose Set Guided Access Passcode and create a passcode that is not easily confused with your normal iPhone passcode.

Optionally enable Face ID under the same screen, so you can end a session quickly without entering the Guided Access passcode. Apple describes Guided Access as a feature that restricts the device to a single app and lets you control which device functions remain available.

How to use Guided Access at a Scanner

Before approaching the reader, open the authentication, hotel, car wash , transit, airline, or other app that displays the temporary code. Navigate to the screen where the live QR code or barcode is fully visible. Triple click the Side button (power button). On an older iPhone with a Home button, triple click the Home button instead. If the Accessibility Shortcuts menu appears, select Guided Access and tap Start. Your iPhone is now locked to that app. Present the screen to the optical barcode/QR scanner.

I wasn’t sure this would work and I tried it out yesterday and found this prevented the Apple Pay screen from activating. So, in my limited experimentation it worked. I’m not sure it will work for all readers etc.

The device is working as intended. The companies issuing the keys, QR codes etc. need to support Apple Wallet and make the various cards, keys, passes etc. compatible with the Wallet.

Now, with that said, in iOS 27 Apple will be allowing users to add cards, keys, QR codes etc. to Apple Wallet. So, there’s no solution currently, but in several weeks you’ll be able to upgrade to iOS 27 and add the items yourself.

The device is working as Apple intended. FTFY.

The scanners at railway stations here in my part of the UK work with any app that can display a QR code or barcode. That might be the rail company's own app, email attachment, pdf, etc. You can print your ticket at home and scan that and, more importantly they work with the paper tickets which you get from the station ticket office and ticket machines so that people who don't have phones can also travel on trains.

This is a problem caused by Apple's misunderstanding of how European train services work. It'll be interesting to see if the Wallet change fixes it.

If the rail company has a mobile app or website all they had to do was add a button to the website that says “Add to Apple Wallet” like millions of other apps and websites do. So essentially their web designer or app developer would have needed to spend about 5 minutes adding a button and the issue solved.

In the world of computers, it’s the other way around. Software adapts to the hardware not vice versa. Think if Apple had to make their iPhone or computers compatible with the millions of apps on the app store. You would have a menu system that would require users to scroll through thousands of options. You think that would be a time-saver when you have to do it for the hundreds of apps on your iPhone? 😃

Jeff Donald wrote:

In the world of computers, it’s the other way around. Software adapts to the hardware.

I agree. The barcode ticket and travel pass readers were around for years before the Apple wallet and, as you pointed out in your earlier post, it would be trivial for Apple to fix this in their software.

And all Apple has to is to add a setting which requires user intervention to invoke the Wallet. So essentially Apple would have needed to spend about 5 minutes adding a feature and the issue solved.