How to get started with iOS 6’s most underrated new app: Passbook

“iOS 6 includes Passbook, Apple’s new app which allows you to store boarding passes, movie tickets, retail coupons, loyalty cards, and more on your iPhone,” Jason D. O’Grady reports for ZDNet.

“The cool part is that Passbook passes appear on your iPhone Lock screen and they’re geo-fenced, which means that your Starbucks cards automatically appears when you step into a Starbucks,” O’Grady reports. “There aren’t a lot of apps that support Passbook presently, but Apple launched with an impressive list of partners.”

Read more in the full article here.

20 Comments

  1. As usual apples US and China centric approach is apparent in the passbook app as well. In majority of regions there are no passbook partners … Apple you are a global company service over a 100 countries , come out of the US and offlate china mode and think and server global audience.

    1. It’s up to individual companies to implement PassBook utilization. There is no Country-centric element to this. The geo-fencing runs off of GPS, not Maps, so the poor map support in some countries does not impact PassBook.

        1. The best way to improve that is to report it and keep using it. I can’t count the number of mistakes I found on Google Maps when it first came out. I still do find errors too.

          Based on their past reputation with other software updates, I expect this stuff to get fixed fast.

      1. I think PassBook is being groomed as the “digital wallet”. It’s meant to be used on a device that you carry with you at all times: iPhone. Most iPad owners do not carry their iPad into every store or purchase point they visit.

      2. Because the iPad is less portable and comes in a WiFi-only version. But I do agree it would be nice on the iPad for making lists, buying movie tickets, and planning trips and such. But are you really going to flash your iPad in like at Target and Walgreens?

  2. As a Mac user for the last 16 years, Passbook is one of the worst apps I’ve seen from Apple since Jobs returned. You open it up for the first time, there’s no info on how it works, its not obvious, it just sends you a link to the AppStore (if that link works without changing the iPhone’s clock forward a year). Then a normal user can buy an app and then have no idea what to do. In the case of Walgreens, you create an account, create a rewards card, pull up the rewards card, then you say add to Passbook.

    This is such a horrible UI and process its ridiculous. If i Had to Google “how to start passbook” when I got it, I can’t imagine what 90% of users did, most likely they shut it down and never used it again.

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