How do I add my Starbucks digital card to passbook?

[Solomani]

Again, most uses of Passbook don't involve payment. They're used for the convenience of checking in or for offering coupons or reward cards.

Which reinforces my post above. Passbook is just a temporary "stopgap" that Apple is using for now, since Apple is not yet 100% confident about jumping the NFC bandwagon.

In the months (years?) ahead, when NFC begins to prove itself after a shakedown, Apple can easily just phase out Passbook... or roll its functionalities into Apple's own NFC front end.

Hence.... Apple probably never meant Passbook to be a "competitor" or see it as their own proprietary replacement for NFC (which is more far reaching and can do more). It's simply Apple saying "We don't think NFC is ready for prime time, but we keep looking into it and assessing when it might be ready to be implemented on Apple devices. In the meantime... we have this thing called Passbook!"

 

[matrix07]

When it's touted as one of the main features and the uses they demoed aren't available months later, yes.

I don't see how it's unreasonable to expect what we were shown back in June to work at launch.

Now you're just reaching. They didn't demo what's in the app. They demoed how to use it. When they demoed Newsstand some magazines on the demo weren't available for many months. Business change plan.
Are you this desperate to try to prove that Apple fail? Because your logic is failing.

 

[cyks]

As Apple, it's quite easy to mockup something to show "hey, this is passbook, here's what it's capable of." It's impossible to then go "hey Starbucks, we're going to force you to implement this right now." At no point did apple say those were bonafide parts of passbook, they were just used as examples of the types of passes that could be made.

If it were a simple mock-up, then they should have gone with a generic coffee house instead of an actual store.

At no point did apple say they were bona fide parts of Passbook? It's currently shown on their webpage!

If, before iOS 6 was released, they had shown a bunch of stores with the disclaimer '*actual stores may vary at launch,' it'd be a (slightly) different story, but by them having it there now is nothing short of false advertisement.

 

[cyks]

Now you're just reaching. They didn't demo what's in the app. They demoed how to use it. When they demoed Newsstand some magazines on the demo weren't available for many months. Business change plan.
Are you this desperate to try to prove that Apple fail? Because your logic is failing.

Where am I reaching?

Apple demonstrated Passbook back in June.
In the demonstration, Apple displayed a bunch of vendors.
Months later, Apple releases Passbook, but the vendors previously shown are nowhere to be found.
Apple continues to display said vendors on their website and in promotional materials.


If a business plan changes or their app isn't going to be ready, then stop showing them as though they will be. What's so hard about that?

 

[matrix07]

If a business plan changes or their app isn't going to be ready, then stop showing them as though they will be. What's so hard about that?

Yes, you're really reaching. Good day.

 

[CooperHarris]

Given Apple has decided to go it alone again with something entirely of their own making instead of adopting one of the admittedly new, but standard and rapidly growing technologies such as NFC I'd say it's damn well their responsibility or at least in their very best interests to get companies on board and ready for Passbook by its release, else it was going to look the ridiculous white elephant that it now does.

Go it alone? How exactly is Apple doing that? Passbook takes something that's already available today and makes it better. You can pay for Starbucks today using the Starbucks app. To do so requires you to open the phone, find the app, launch the app, select mobile payments, etc. etc. Passbook makes that entire process easier. Same for Fandango. With American Express you can be alerted on charges and see recent activity. You can easily do this with a dedicated app, but you can also just as easily do it with Passbook.

Passbook doesn't change the want things are done, just the way we do them. NFC changes the way things are done and that is the barrier to adoption. Passbook doesn't have that problem.

 

[cyks]

Go it alone? How exactly is Apple doing that? Passbook takes something that's already available today and makes it better. You can pay for Starbucks today using the Starbucks app. To do so requires you to open the phone, find the app, launch the app, select mobile payments, etc. etc. Passbook makes that entire process easier.

Easier... except that Starbucks doesn't currently work with Passbook.

 

[IMDeus]

To answer the original question. I did see passsource.com mentioned but yet you can add your starbucks card using that. I did and use it at starbucks without issue. The only thing is that your balaance on the passbook card does not update automatically.

 

[opeepingtomo]

What I do not like is that to add something in passbook you need to have the app installed as well right?

What if I just want the Passbook functionality without the full blown app? I wish Passbook would have "applets?" or call them whatever you want. But when you are in Passbook and want to add something from the appstore, there could be little "applets" that you add into passbook without having to install the full app.

For example, with Starbucks, i could care less about the different things you can do in their app other than just be able to show them the pay card on the phone. It should be as simple as downloading the Passbook Starbucks Applet, putting in credentials, and it shows up in Passbook. Why do i need the full app for this? It's just one more icon in an endless set of static rows and columns that i have to put somewhere that makes it harder to sort through the Apps I already have.

 

[cyks]

To answer the original question. I did see passsource.com mentioned but yet you can add your starbucks card using that. I did and use it at starbucks without issue. The only thing is that your balaance on the passbook card does not update automatically.

...and, by using Passsource to input it, Passbook won't bring up the card automatically when you get near the Starbucks.

Of course, with the shoddy list of POI and wrong addresses in the new maps, there's a good chance that they wouldn't come up anyway.

 

[AbyssImpact]

NFC isn't holy grail. It has as much a chance to fail as Passbook.

It has a 0.0000001% chance of failing.

 

[CooperHarris]

What I do not like is that to add something in passbook you need to have the app installed as well right?

That is up to the vendor. Quoting Apple.com ...

You can add passes to Passbook through apps, emails, and websites from participating airlines, theaters, stores, and more.

 

[IMDeus]

What I do not like is that to add something in passbook you need to have the app installed as well right?
.

Currently there is nothing tying that together. No, you can make your own cards without the vendor app

 

[Gaidin43]

So will Starbucks update to use this or no?

 

[IMDeus]

...and, by using Passsource to input it, Passbook won't bring up the card automatically when you get near the Starbucks.

Correct.

Of course, with the shoddy list of POI and wrong addresses in the new maps, there's a good chance that they wouldn't come up anyway.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

[CooperHarris]

Easier... except that Starbucks doesn't currently work with Passbook.

That wasn't the point of my comment. The suggestion was made that Apple was "going it alone" with Passbook. My example illustrates that Apple isn't changing the way we pay for things, just changing how we do it. NFC is a change in the way we pay for things. We must have a special device with NFC support and the vendor must be able to interact with it. In contrast, Passbook is using scannable codes that we use today with physical media (cards, printed paper, etc.) or apps on smart phones (Starbucks, etc.). You are correct that Starbucks does not support Passbook today but they have already indicated that they will. That really has nothing to do with the point that was being made.

 

[fisherking]

So will Starbucks update to use this or no?

they promised 'before october'...so...they're just running late....

 

[opeepingtomo]

Currently there is nothing tying that together. No, you can make your own cards without the vendor app

I know we can do these things. I've used passource, or whatever it's called, but a central place to add these things from the App Store or within passbook (without installing the actual app) would be better.

 

[IMDeus]

I know we can do these things. I've used passource, or whatever it's called, but a central place to add these things from the App Store or within passbook (without installing the actual app) would be better.

aaagreed!

 

[Senseotech]

I know we can do these things. I've used passource, or whatever it's called, but a central place to add these things from the App Store or within passbook (without installing the actual app) would be better.

Ideally, you would be able to book a flight, buy movie tickets, create a loyalty account, etc. on a website or something and then have the website ask to add the pass, or send you an email with the pass attached. Those are both options that work in the current implementation of Passbook; its up to the creator of the pass (Starbucks, Fandango, etc.) to implement them this way.

 

[Gaidin43]

Most providers will want you to download their own app to try to fen more business out of it instead of making it Convenient for the consumer.

 

[matrix07]

It has a 0.0000001% chance of failing.

Yeah.. one bank is already re-think their NFC strategy already.

 

[Rigby]

Given Apple has decided to go it alone again with something entirely of their own making instead of adopting one of the admittedly new, but standard and rapidly growing technologies such as NFC

What I don't get is why people keep comparing Passbook with NFC. NFC is a radio communication technology. It does not do what Passbook does. It does not organize tickets, coupons etc., or provide mechanisms for automatic push updates and notifications. If you want to compare Passbook to something, it would be Google Wallet.

Passbook's main contribution is a well-defined common file format and MIME type for tickets etc. which utilizes standard barcode formats like QR or Aztec to interact with the point-of-sale devices. If Apple ever decides to put NFC hardware into its devices, it will be very easy to make Passbook work with that as well.

 

[mnemonix]

What I don't get is why people keep comparing Passbook with NFC. NFC is a radio communication technology. It does not do what Passbook does. It does not organize tickets, coupons etc., or provide mechanisms for automatic push updates and notifications. If you want to compare Passbook to something, it would be Google Wallet.

Passbook's main contribution is a well-defined common file format and MIME type for tickets etc. which utilizes standard barcode formats like QR or Aztec to interact with the point-of-sale devices. If Apple ever decides to put NFC hardware into its devices, it will be very easy to make Passbook work with that as well.

I think there are 2 issues. The first is that despite your simple explanation here, it's still not clear to most people what Passbook is, and the fact that Apple didn't explain it well, over-sold it and didn't even have plenty of companies on board for its release didn't help - as I've said elsewhere, this does not bode well for its success.

Second, because the iPhone didn't come with NFC, this is being seen as the poor relation, compounded by my first point, it kinda does something at the point of sale and you may even be able to pay for things with credit stored on it? See, again, I'm not clear.

Your point is well made, which is more than can be said of Passbook itself.

 

[Solomani]

Passbook's main contribution is a well-defined common file format and MIME type for tickets etc. which utilizes standard barcode formats like QR or Aztec to interact with the point-of-sale devices. If Apple ever decides to put NFC hardware into its devices, it will be very easy to make Passbook work with that as well.

Correct. Once Apple decides it is ready to embrace NFC, they can simply merge Passbook's functionality into their NFC-enabled 'front end'.