Starbucks said Thursday its mobile app and Starbucks Card are now integrated with Apple's Passbook, enabling users with iPhones running iOS6 to use their phones for buying coffee.
Users of the existing Starbucks mobile app need to tap "add to Passbook" to load the capability to Passbook, Starbucks said in an emailed statement. To make payments, users swipe the Starbucks "pass" in Passbook on the display of an iOS 6 device. They then show the barcode presented on the display to a barcode reader at a pay station at Starbucks.
Since Passbook is time and location-aware, the Starbucks Card will show up on the device's lock screen automatically when a customer enters a Starbucks store, the company said.
Starbucks also enables its Starbucks Card over Android devices. It has relied on barcode scanning of its digitally loaded Starbucks Card for more than a year, after officials said they didn't want to wait for a rollout of Near Field Communication technology to smartphones and terminals.
Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen or subscribe to Matt's RSS feed. His email address is mhamblen@computerworld.com.
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