Passbook

We reckon most of you never leave the house without three things: your keys, your cell phone, and your wallet. That’s a habit unlikely to change anytime soon. Nor do we expect most of you to ditch the plastic credit cards in your physical wallet for digital versions. That said, the tech and financial worlds are combining efforts to turn modern smartphones such as the iPhone into a version of a digital wallet.

Apple’s own relatively early push in this area comes with the Passbook feature that arrived with iOS 6. Some people already use the iPhone to scan boarding passes at the airport or to pay for coffee in a Starbucks through a third-party app. Passbook provides a single repository for all these items, along with movie tickets, coupons, and gift cards. No more fumbling through printouts, apps, or e-mails to find the right ticket, coupon, or pass.

Moreover, Apple has made it so that Passbook is time and location based. In other words, the boarding pass appears when you get to the airport, even on the iPhone Lock screen, and you’re notified of any gate changes. Or walk into the coffee shop and the appropriate gift card pops up.

Apple says you can find Passbook-capable apps in the App Store. Since this was all just getting started as we went to press, only a few Passbook apps were in place. That may no longer be the case by the time you’re reading this.

You may also see an Add to Passbook link on a merchant’s website — just make sure you’re signed into your iCloud account to add passes to the Passbook app.

To use a given pass, tap it in the Passbook app, as shown in Figure 6-15, and then point it at the barcode reader or scanner at the terminal, neighborhood multiplex, hotel, department store, or whatever other place you frequent.

To show a pass on the Lock screen, tap the information button (a circled i) on the bottom-right front of the pass and make sure that the Show on Lock Screen switch is in the On position, as shown in Figure 6-16.

And with that, we remind you to proceed to the next chapter.

Figure 6-15: Tap an item in your Passbook to bring it out front and center.

Figure 6-16: Show your passbook on the Lock screen.