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Samsung Pay doesn't work on rooted phones
Bad news, power-users: if you habitually root every smartphone you put in your pocket, you won't be able to use Samsung Pay. Users participating in the South Korean trial program have learned that devices with unrestricted access to the file system have been blocked from using the service. "Access denied," reads the app's error message. "Samsung Pay has been locked due to an unauthorized modification."
Samsung begins testing Samsung Pay in Korea
Samsung's Apple Pay competitor is almost ready for primetime -- but first, it's going through a bit of testing. The company announced that it's begun a Samsung Pay trial for select owners of the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Plus in Korea. To refresh, Samsung Pay is the company's spin on mobile payments, and while it packs in NFC, it also takes advantage of Samsung's acquisition of LoopPay for "magnetic secure transmission." That allows you to hold your Samsung phone next to any magnetic card stripe reader to make a payment. Apple Pay and other mobile payments offerings rely on NFC, which isn't as widely supported at most retailers. There's no word when Samsung Pay will officially launch (Samsung says "it won't be long"), but rumors point it landing alongside the Galaxy Note 5 in August.
Samsung's Wallet service folds shut on June 30th
Now that Samsung Pay is nearly here, the company is riding its two-year-old Wallet service into the sunset. Samsung is now telling users that Wallet will stop taking purchases on June 30th. Any reservations and tickets you score before then will still be valid, but you'll otherwise be left out of the loop. The move isn't all that surprising given how much more advanced Samsung Pay should be, but it's a blunt reminder of just how quickly the mobile payment world is evolving -- technology that was promising in 2013 is already old hat.
Relive Samsung's Galaxy S6 event right here
Did you sleep in on Sunday, only to realize that you'd missed Samsung's big Galaxy Unpacked event? Relax -- you can still watch the show as if it were fresh. As is its custom, the Korean tech giant has helpfully posted both a replay of the full event and a quick recap. The focus of the presentation is no longer all that surprising (spoiler: It was about the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge), but it's worth checking out if you want to see Samsung explore every nook and cranny of its latest smartphones.
