First you need to join the Apple Developer Program. Why? I'm not developing an app.
To join the Apple developer program you need an Apple device that will do two factor auth. So I go buy an iPhone 6 with a cracked screen solely for this purpose.
Then you need Apple to approve your DUNS number. I am one of the minority who already had one, so I didn't have to go through the whole process with Dun & Bradstreet to get one, but Apple would not accept it for several weeks until suddenly they did, with no change to the number or other company info.
And then, you need to schedule a phone interview! This is the point I'm at right now, so I can't tell you how many more hurdles there are to clear. I haven't had luck yet with the Apple "click here and your phone will ring any moment with a call from us" button on their website. Phone never rings.
And I haven't even got to the part where I pay $100 before accepting any payments, which Stripe and PayPal sure don't require.
You have to endure a lot of friction to eliminate payment friction for your customers.
Signing a signature is basically obsolete - in fact I can't remember the last time I did. Restaurants usually have a wireless terminal they bring over.
It's strange how regional those types of things are though. I am always surprised traveling in the US when I'm asked to sign (even with chip or contactless, which makes zero sense).
I don't think I've signed anything for 10+ years tbh, but the UK went pretty heavily for chip and pin early one. But honestly it's a coinflip whether I remember my pin these days.
If you use ApplePay on an older terminal, which does implement the more secure protocol, it falls back to the same protocol as used by contactless cards and is subject to the £30 limit.
The EMV part requires the merchant device to be online or the process won't happen and the phone part requires user authentication; you'd have to break both at the same time to abuse it. Probably still possible, but much harder than stealing a card and using it until you hit the limit or get flagged.
Probably also why EMV contactless without PIN and EMV contactless with PIN have different limits (amount of transactions and transaction amounts).