Apple's Passbook feature of iOS 6 has become a surprise hit for developers.
Passbook is virtual file folder for all those bits of paper you accumulate in your wallet: tickets, boarding passes, coupons and so forth. The Apple-built app aggregates them from third-party apps like Fandango and Starbucks in one convenient place. Each app gets a pass that then, based upon your GPS location, pops up on the lockscreen to, say, remind you that you've got a $50 gift card at Target or nine bucks left on your Starbucks card as you're walking past the store.
American Airlines and cosmetics retailer Sephora are among the big-name companies that have developed apps for Passbook and seen them downloaded by the tens of thousands since it was announced in June. Passbook also plays nicely with Eventbrite, Ticketmaster and Square. Apple doesn't say how many apps have been developed for Passbook, but 22 are featured in the curated "Apps for Passbook" section of the App Store.
"We were amazed at the high uptake," Phil Easter, American Airlines' director of mobile apps said. "Apple has allowed an app developer like us is to put features right in front of the user where before, that space was off limits."
Passbook isn't really a digital wallet like Google Wallet, which uses NFC technology to let you pay retailers. But the upside is retailers only need to be able to scan QR or ticket codes for the feature to work -- whereas NFC technology requires many businesses to upgrade their checkout systems. Passbook is meant to remind consumers of deals or gift cards they have at nearby retailers, make using them super fast and streamline the iOS app experience. Although you can use it to make payments at some retailers, like Starbucks, its strength lies in quickly and easily displaying coupon or ticket codes.
Belly is one company that's come to love Passbook for the ease it provides customers and retailers.
"When Passbook was originally announced, we looked at it as a potential threat to our business," Belly CEO Logan LaHive said. "Instead, we found it was the perfect complement to what we were doing."
Belly is a digital loyalty program for small businesses. Users earn points and rewards using the company's app or loyalty card, which businesses process with an iPad and software Belly provides. LaHive quickly realized Passbook could provide an even easier way for customers to earn rewards at retailers because retailers can scan codes presented by Passbook passes. Every store using Belly has had pass-based transactions, and 83 percent have had multiple passes added to their location, meaning more than one customer using Passbook. The startup has seen 40,000 visits to retail locations where retailers used Belly's pass.
"We see Passbook growing rapidly; it’s driving a huge amount of downloads in our app," LaHive said, noting that Belly saw a tenfold increase in app downloads when Passbook launched.
Sephora saw 38,000 more app downloads than usual the day Passbook launched and says 10,000 of its "Beauty Insider" rewards cards were added to Passbook that day alone. That number has since jumped to 375,000. The company also uses Passbook for gift cards.
"From a gift card standpoint it’s very seamless," Julie Bornstein, senior vice president of Sephora Digital, told Wired. "You can send a gift card to a friend, they accept it, hit a link to add to their Passbook, and then they have their gift card right there." Customers also can scan a code on their conventional gift cards so they can add them to Passbook.
Downloads of American Airlines' app, which launched the day Passbook went live, skyrocketed in the 10 days after Passbook launched, bringing the airline an additional 1 million downloads. Now about 20,000 passes are served each day, and the company has 1.5 million active users of the service. That number is growing as more people upgrade to iOS 6, said Easter, the airline's director of mobile apps.
"When I saw this technology, with the pass bubbling up to the lockscreen, we jumped in as soon as we heard the announcement," he said. "Apple did a really good job of defining the spec and putting out all the required technical documents. It was one of the more straightforward implementations for our tech team."
Easter says customer feedback has been great so far. "Anecdotally, competitors don't have it and are getting hammered for not having it," he said.
But there are some hiccups. Businesses and app makers must first make sure users know the app is Passbook-enabled, and then ensure they understand how to set up a pass and use it.
"It was super confusing," mobile designer Mariya Yao told Wired. "I opened it and it told me to download a bunch of other apps. I'm a mobile designer, so I did that, but if I were a normal person I totally wouldn't have."
Yao has used Passbook with Evenbtrite, Ticketmaster, Fandango, and Square, but since she doesn't remember to use those apps regularly, she also doesn't remember to use Passbook with them.
One complaint we had with iOS 6 was how confusing it can be to create a pass with some apps, which can require multiple steps (like creating a rewards account, for example). Once we downloaded an app, we wondered, "Why didn't it just automatically go into Passbook when we downloaded it?" Early expectations that Passbook would become Apple's e-wallet added to consumer confusion.
Mark Wilkins, a digital artist at Rhythm & Hues Studios, couldn't be happier with Passbook, though. He uses it mostly for frequent caffeine boosts from Starbucks.
"I didn't find setting it up to be difficult at all -- logging in via my account on the Starbucks application was pretty straightforward and then the Passbook thing popped right up, but what's a little confusing about it is that it's never clear which applications will provide Passbook support," he said.
That confusion doesn't surprise LaHive, who said customers are still getting the hang of Passbook. "It’s a brand-new product," he said. "It’s a major potential shift with how people interact with their phone."
Even so, Passbook is helping push stores into the 21st century -- perhaps more smoothly than the transition of Android's mobile technology of choice, NFC. Many retailers are adopting bar-code readers and other technology to facilitate walletless transactions so customers can redeem Discover eCertificates or gift cards from a number of retailers through Gyft, among other Passbook-ready apps.
Now, if Apple would add payments to that equation.
