If your heart bleeds Android, but your eyes occasionally wander in the direction of Apple's Passbook, good news. Samsung has announced "Wallet," a ticketing and coupon app of its own. Unveiled at the firm's Developer Day at Mobile World Congress, Wallet comes ready with an open API to encourage adoption, with some big names already onboard including Hotels.com, Booking.com, Expedia, MLB and Lufthansa. Though this isn't the only Android solution we've heard about, in keeping with the norm, the app will be connected, and location aware. As such, the app will let you know when Wallet-friendly stores and so on are nearby, as well as continually send updates to items already stored in the app, should those booking details change. The app API is still in beta at this time, but word is that Samsung is accepting early sign-ups on its approval.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Source: The Next Web, Samsung Developers

Major League Baseball and Apple's quest to banish paper ticketing received a boost last night after the former revealed that 13 stadiums would offer the latter's Passbook integration this season. Seven teams, including the Oakland A's, Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins are signed up, with a further three to be announced separately. How long will it take before the duo hit it out of the park and get a grand slam of all 30 MLB teams? Hopefully long enough for us to learn some more baseball slang.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Apple

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Source: GigaOM

Not only has Delta been eagerly embracing WiFi onboard its flights, the company's also been rolling out a digital makeover. Joining upgrades to its website, the airline has introduced a new iPad app, simply called Fly Delta. The free app lets you do the usual stuff like checking-in and booking flights, but it also goes a few miles further. Aside from serving as a light travel guide, offering up info on your destination, the app will also serve inflight needs, like purchasing WiFi and other onboard amenities. What's more, "Glass Bottom Jet" offers an interactive live-map view of the world below you with social networking integration. Best of all, Delta's iOS 6 iPhone App Passbook integration is now live, so you can leave that paper boarding pass at home. Full press release and video demos just past the break.

Filed under: Tablets, Transportation, Software

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Source: Delta, iTunes (App Store)

Square payments have so far been self-centered affairs that won't let us share the wealth with others. In rather convenient timing for the season, updates to Square Register and Square Wallet for Android and iOS have made a little of that sought-after generosity possible through the introduction of gift cards. Americans can now give and receive credit for any location that uses Square Register to process payments: if friends would like nothing more than to treat themselves to triple-shot espressos at the local indie coffee shop, you can make their day. The update also brings a treat for the Apple-inclined who've kept up-to-date with iOS 6, letting them redeem their cards quickly through Passbook instead of diving into Square Wallet or QR codes printed on old-fashioned paper. We're still waiting on word of gift card availability for our Canadian friends, but most everyone in the US just hast to check for the relevant app updates to spread some affection.

Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Mobile

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Via: The Next Web

Source: Jack Dorsey (Twitter), Square

We've seen some creative use cases for Passbook in iOS 6. Modernizing the dreaded business card exchange is still fresh, though, and that's where the real estate agents at RE/MAX come into play. Using a platform from Vizibility, the realtor is reportedly the first company rolling out a large-scale, Passbook-based method that lets 4,500 of its staff share their basic details, contact files and social networks from their iPhones. Profiles won't just be inert listings, either. Geofencing can limit the lock screen shortcut to an open house or the office, while cards can include company directories and update contacts over time. NFC transfers and QR codes are available for those who can rely on short-range wireless or still have to dish out traditional paper stock. Vizibility's Passbook approach won't guarantee a sale for a cramped house -- but it might keep a good bargain from being lost in the business card shuffle.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Apple

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Source: Vizibility

Google's unleashed new versions of Chrome for iOS and Android (both x86 and ARM-specific flavors) that each pack miscellaneous stability updates, but the iDevice-bound release has been graced with a few new features. With the newly-minted build, users will be able to save boarding passes and tickets with Passbook, open PDFs in other apps and have the option to automatically detect text encoding. To get your mitts on the fresh downloads, hit the neighboring source links.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Google

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Via: Google Chrome Releases (1), (2)

Source: iTunes, Google Play

Gift cards often get a bad rap as the last resort in holiday shopping, what we supposedly get only when all hope of a carefully considered present has gone out the window. Apple isn't quite so cyncial, and it may have injected new life into gift giving now that it has switched on buying gift cards through the recently updated Apple Store iOS app as of this weekend. Pick a color and a card value -- up to $2,000, if someone's been good enough to earn a MacBook Pro -- and the resulting email lets iOS 6-touting recipients load the card into Passbook. Besides saving some plastic, the Passbook entry adds some worth through geofencing that reminds recipients to splurge if they're near one of Apple's steel-and-glass stores. All told, the card may be more than welcome by iPhone fans and save the ignominy of a last-minute rush to the store. Just make sure the recipient doesn't mind going without a physical gift on the big day -- it wouldn't be right to drain all the romanticism out of a special occasion.

Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Apple

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Via: AppleInsider

Source: App Store

With Apple having recently introduced its novel Passbook feature in the latest version of iOS, it's only natural for app makers to try and take advantage of such miscellaneous hub. With that in mind, Gyft -- a 2012 TechCrunch Disrupt finalist -- has made its application fully compatible with Cupertino's newfangled iOS 6, adding support for the iPhone 5's 4-inch screen and, most importantly, the ability to add gift cards from many retailers to Passbook; some of which include Amazon, Target, Lowe's, GAP, American Eagle and Starbucks. You can grab the Gyft (v1.2) application now directly from your iDevice, or there's always the link below if that makes it slightly easier for you.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software

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Via: TechCrunch

Source: iTunes (App Store)

When it launched with iOS 6 this Wednesday, Apple's Passbook mobile-ticketing feature boasted a handful of high-profile partners -- including Fandango, Live Nation, Lufthansa and Ticketmaster -- but that list still leaves plenty of room for fleshing out. According to Venture Beat, AmEx is launching integration with Passbook later today. The credit card company's Passbook functionality will include notifications for new account transactions, along with the ability to view your current balance and redeem membership rewards points. The service can also use smartphones' location to verify charges flagged as suspicious.

Starbucks, which was featured in an early Passbook demo at WWDC, also announced the timeline for its integration with the service, tweeting today that an "update is coming at the end of the month" and offering no further details. Judging by Apple's earlier previews, Passbook will let customers pay with a Starbucks card. The coffee chain's Passbook functionality looks to be quite similar to its partnership with Square, which will be the go-to mobile payments option for non-iOS customers when it launches this fall.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software

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Via: 9to5Mac

Source: Venture Beat

Now that iOS 6 has officially landed, Apple has pulled back the veil revealing the first wave of apps to support its new Passbook feature. The initial group of companies to jump on the bandwagon include: Ticketmaster, Live Nation, Lufthansa, MLB.com At Bat, Sephora to Go, Walgreens and Fandango Movies. While this list is a tad bit shorter than we hoped for, it's safe to say that more apps will follow in the not-so-distant future. Want to be the first to know when they arrive? Be sure to keep an eye on the Passbook section of the App Store for the latest updates.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile

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Source: Apple Insider

Thinner. Lighter. Faster. Simpler. The moment the iPhone 5 was unveiled we knew that it was checking off all the right boxes, folding in all the improvements and refinements people have been demanding over the past year -- yet plenty of folks still went to their respective social networks to type out their bitter disappointment. iPhone upgrade ennui seemed to be sweeping the nation, a sentiment that appeared to quickly dissipate when it came time for people to vote with their wallets.

The iPhone 5 is here -- or will be soon, anyway -- and it's every bit the device that people were asking for when the iPhone 4S came out. Its new design has less mass yet leaves room for a larger display and LTE wireless, all while increasing battery life. In nearly every respect, this is an upgrade over the 4S that came before, though it arrives almost a year later than many had hoped. Is it too late to keep pace with the rapidly iterating Android offerings, or is it so good it was worth waiting for? The answer lies below.

Gallery: iPhone 5 review

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Now that the iPhone 5 is officially out of the bag, it's time to talk software. Apple hasn't exactly kept its cards close to its chest in regards to iOS 6: Cupertino teased the software at WWDC, letting us in on the direct Facebook integration, the new Maps application, Passbook and "Do Not Disturb" in the process. Today the OS gets official, and Scott Forstall demoed the software on the iPhone 5.

Not too much new here, but the software is out of its beta phase and ready to ship. One of the most hyped additions to iOS 6 has been the Maps application, which includes Siri navigation, 3D building view and satellite imagery. In Safari, there's now a full-screen mode and you'll be able to share tabs from your desktop with your phone (dubbed iCloud Tabs). We're also seeing Passbook in action once again, bringing up a plane ticket at the lockscreen when you get to the airport, for example. One new thing here: Delta is confirmed as a partner for this digital ticket service.

As we've already known, on the Siri front you can bring up sports ranking and Rotten Tomatoes movie ratings via the voice assistant. And, of course, one of the most welcome new features is FaceTime over cellular -- no mention of whether that will be supported on all carriers, but it certainly looks that way. iOS 6 will be available on September 19th (also when the iPhone 5 will go on sale), and it's coming to the iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, new iPad, iPad 2 and iPod touch.

Gallery: iOS 6 gets official debut on the iPhone 5

Gallery: iOS 6 Siri

Check out all the coverage at our iPhone 2012 event hub!

Filed under: Cellphones, Software

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We're on the cusp of Apple's sixth iPhone launch, and there's very different expectations than there were last year. The 2011 rumor cycle left more than a few people burned: the later-than-usual October launch and repeated claims of a heavily-remade design led some to a disappointment when the iPhone 4S arrived, even though the final product had a slew of camera, speed and voice command upgrades. This year, the rumors have been grounded well before there was an event date in our hands.

There have been fewer instances of wild rumors. Instead, it's been based more around pragmatism, using either tangible leaks or sources that have a solid track record. Think of the perennial leaks from the Wall Street Journal or the increasingly well-established sourcing from iMore and The Loop. Whether you're conspiracy-minded or not, it's been hard to ignore the sheer number of claims that have tamped down expectations rather than inflated them. It's as though there's a collective fear we'll see a repeat of the 2011 hysteria and deal with fans (or detractors) complaining about missing features that were never promised in the first place.

Where last summer was full of uncertainty, this year there's a mounting consensus as to what we'll see, how we'll get it, and when. Tracking everything that's been mentioned may be a handful, however. With that in mind, we'll dive in and gauge what's likely to emerge from behind Apple's curtain on September 12th -- as well as what we can rule out from the get-go.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Apple has been filing more than its fair share of NFC-related patents, but it was just granted what could be one of its more important wins at the USPTO. The design for an "on-the-go shopping list" app would help buyers find and pull the trigger on deals through every tool an iPhone has at its disposal, whether it's taking a snapshot of goods with the camera, punching in the UPC code by hand or tapping an item for an NFC-based "touch scan." We'll admit that we're a bit disappointed at how NFC is used, however. As with an earlier filing, the very short range wireless is kept largely to price comparisons and adding products to a list for a purchase from a store clerk later on, rather than closing the deal outright as we've seen with Google Wallet. The original 2008 filing date will also have seen a lot of water flowing under the bridge; there's no guarantee that any enthusiasm for NFC from the iPhone 3G era will have transferred to the present day. Accordingly, we would be careful about drawing any connections between iOS 6's Passbook and Apple's ideas from four years ago -- even if Apple has regularly been a never-say-never sort of company.

Filed under: Cellphones

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Apple has been chasing NFC patents for years, but it's just now been granted a US patent for its own approach to a transportation check-in -- one of the most common uses of the technology in the real world. The filing describes a theoretical iTravel app that would store reservation and ticket information for just about any vehicle and stop along the way: planes, trains and (rented) automobiles would just have the traveler tap an NFC-equipped device to hop onboard, and the hotel at the end of the line would also take credentials through a gentle bump. Besides the obvious paper-saving measures, iTravel could help skip key parts of the airport security line by providing passport information, a fingerprint or anything else screeners might want to see while we'd otherwise be juggling our suitcases.

It all sounds ideal, but before you start booking that trip to the South Pacific with ambitions of testing an NFC-equipped 2012 iPhone, remember this: the patent was originally filed in 2008. We clearly haven't seen iTravel manifest itself as-is, and recent murmurs from the Wall Street Journal have suggested that Apple isn't enthusiastic about the whole NFC-in-commerce idea even today. Still, with Passbook waiting in the wings, the patent can't help but fuel speculation that Apple is getting more serious about an iPhone with near-field wireless in the future.

Filed under: Cellphones, Transportation, Mobile

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At the debut of the T-Mobile G1, Switched On identified the central conflict that would quickly tear apart the goodwill between Apple and Google. In fact, in Steve Jobs' authorized biography, Walter Isaacson quotes the late Apple CEO on Android, noting that the he was prepared to "go thermonuclear war" on the iOS competitor. Indeed, the first WWDC since Jobs' death was filled with enough anti-Google swipes to smudge every iPhone screen in Moscone West. But the verbal lashings were nothing compared to the beating back that Google and Android took in relation to iOS 6 feature announcements.

Filed under: Announcements, Misc

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From airline and train boarding passes to concert tickets, we've seen a variety of tix make their way into the digital realm at venues around the world. With today's announcement of Passbook, the hard copy credential may soon be a thing of the past. Speaking on stage at Apple's WWDC keynote, VP of iOS Software Scott Forstall demonstrated the feature with United boarding passes, Fandango movie tickets and a Starbucks gift card. While none of these examples are making their premiere debut, Passbook will certainly make the QR-code-based stubs more user-friendly, while also increasing awareness among folks who continue to opt for paper while doubting the usability and authenticity of a digital counterpart. Passbook is also location aware, bringing up a Starbucks card as you approach a shop, for example. You can also get updates related to your stored credentials, such as a gate change announcement with a pending United boarding pass. The feature will come bundled with iOS 6, set to launch this fall.

Check out our full coverage of WWDC 2012 at our event hub!

Gallery: iOS Passbook

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