passbook

Read Cult of Mac’s latest posts on passbook:

Court backs ex-Apple engineer who says he was left off inventors’ list

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Find my iPhone
Inventor worked on "Find My iPhone," among other features.
Photo: Apple

The ex-Apple engineer who claims he helped invent “Find My iPhone” and other features has beaten Apple in a preliminary court hearing.

Apple lost its bid to dismiss the former employee’s lawsuit earlier this week. The suit claims Apple left him off a list of five patents on which he was a rightful co-inventor. Along with “Find My iPhone,” Darren Eastman also notably worked on Passbook, the electronic ticketing system.

iPhone 6 with new Passbook icon shown in likely fake leak

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Pictures of what is allegedly a working iPhone 6 have surfaced on the Chinese social network Weibo. While tons of parts have leaked up to this point, this is the first time we’ve seen what appears to be the device powered on and running iOS 8.

The 4.7-inch device looks legit, although it’s authenticity cannot obviously be confirmed. On the screen, there’s a new Passbook icon. This hints towards the mobile payments platform Apple is expected to unveil at next week’s event.

iTunes Pass offers sneak peek at Apple’s mobile payment service

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Apple has launched a new service called iTunes Pass in several countries, including Japan, Brazil and China.

The service lets customers buy iTunes Store credit from brick-and-mortar Apple retail stores — only using Passbook, rather than the physical gift cards most commonly used. The service appears to work by letting users add a new iTunes Pass inside the Passbook app, which they can then present at their local Apple Store. The user then states how much money they would like to turn into iTunes Store credit, and this is instantly transferred to their account.

Samsung’s Passbook Clone Is Now Available In Google Play

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Apple’s Passbook feature in iOS hasn’t really taken off as quickly as people thought it would, but that hasn’t prevented Samsung from throwing developers into making its own Passbook clone. We first got our first look at Samsung Wallet back in February at MWC, but the the app is finally ready for primetime and available on Google Play.

The app is only supported on the Galaxy S3, S4, Note 1 and Note 2, and you have to sign-in with one of those silly Samsung accounts, but if you’re already nose deep in S Health, S Beam, Samsung Link and all the other half-baked Samsung apps you’ll feel right at home.

Here are the release notes:

iOS 7 Passbook Ditches Forstall’s Dumb Paper Shredder Animation

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Passbook Delete

 

Passbook’s virtual ticket-shredder was one of the little touches in iOS 6 that wreaked of ugly skeuomorphisism. Now that Jony Ive has declared war against all of Scott Forstall’s tacky skeuomorphic UI elements, the Passbook ticket-shredder is now a thing of the past.

When you delete a card in Passbook now it just zaps away into the digital ether, rather than sending your virtual card through a virtual paper shredder that virtually obliviates your ticket so you know it’s deleted and no one can rummage through your virtual trash and piece together all the shreddings to steal your identity.

Here’s a GIF of the new iOS 7 animation in action:

10 Awesome iOS 7 Features That Apple Didn’t Mention At WWDC

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I’ve given iOS 7 a lot of hate this morning — just because I hate its icons — so I thought it was about time I showed it some love. It may not look the best, but the next-generation of iOS is packed full of awesome new features that should greatly improve the user experience.

A lot of those were detailed during Apple’s keynote at WWDC yesterday, but some got left out. So here’s ten awesome features in iOS 7 that didn’t get a mention at the event.

How To Add A Passbook Pass To Your iPhone From Your Mac [OS X Tips]

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Did you know that you can add Passbook passes to your iPhone from your Mac? It’s a feature Apple hasn’t really promoted, but iCloud syncs passes added from OS X to the iPhone with a click of a button.

Hat tip to David Chartier for pointing out this feature on his Finer Things in Tech blog. When viewing a Passbook pass from a source like Ticketmaster or Second Gear Software, simply click the “Add to Passbook” button. You’ll then see the above prompt, and the pass will be added to your iPhone via iCloud.

For more great Passbook tips, check out our handy roundup.

Source: Finer Things in Tech

Mastering Passbook On Your iPhone [Feature]

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Apple’s new Passbook app and system is really a nascent technology, but it’s here on your iPhone, so why not figure out how to use it, right? Below are five tips and tricks to help you get the most out of this futuristic, if not-yet-mature technology from our favorite technology company.

Add Unsupported Passes, Cards, And Tickets To Passbook [iOS Tips]

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Yeah, we get it: Passbook is awesome. It’s also woefully under-populated with only a handful or three of official apps.

But look, Passbook files aren’t even that special. They’re just specially formatted computer files with a .pkpass extension. What’s neat about that is that anyone can create one of these files, and then send them to you in email, or have you download them from the web. That way, you can take advantage of Passbook system without being limited to the official Passbook apps on your iPhone.

Here’s how.

Delete Passbook Items With Aplomb On Your iPhone [iOS Tips]

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Passbook Delete

No, Aplomb is not a new third-party app to help you manage your Passbook items, cars, or passes. But if any developers plan to make one, please let me know.

Really, once a card, coupon, or time-based ticket is expired in Passbook, you’ll want to delete it to prevent Passbook clutter, right? Well, it’s super easy to do so, and here’s how.

Manually Refresh Items And Passes In Passbook [iOS Tips]

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Passbook Refresh

Passbook is cool, and one of the neat features of the service is the automatic refresh of information on your passes, letting you keep track of stuff like your Starbuck’s balance, or airline miles, or other kinds of cool stuff.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work automatically. This can be an issue if they include balances or loyalty points, right? Luckily you can refresh each of the passes in Passbook manually.

Here’s how to do that.

Troubleshoot Getting Passes On The Lock Screen Using Passbook [iOS Tips]

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Passbook Lock Screen

Apple’s Passbook app and system lets you use passes that contain time-sensitive or location-sensitive information. For example, you might have a pass that triggers when you enter a specific store, like Target. Or, you might have airplane tickets going through Passbook, if you use that specific airline’s iOS app.

The ideal here is that the passes show up on your lock screen, so you don’t have to launch an app. This doesn’t always work, however. What can you do when it doesn’t? I’m glad you asked.

Get Apps For Passbook And Carry Less Stuff In Your Wallet [iOS Tips]

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Passbook may be one of the most underrated technologies on the iPhone. In theory, it lets you collect your boarding passes, movie tickets, retail coupons, and loyalty cards all in one place. In reality, it isn’t supported by too many retailers, many of whom already have their own system of handling these types of passes.

In addition, many iPhone users don’t know how to get apps that support Passbook, as the only way to find a special list of apps that are supported by the service is to open the Passbook app itself. If you’re one of those users, here’s how to get some great apps on your iPhone and carry a few less bits of paper and plastic ephemera around with you.

Qantas Launches New iPhone App With Passbook Support

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Australian airline Qantas has always been quick to embrace new technology. Back in October 2010, it became one of the first airlines to offer iPads as in-flight entertainment systems, and one of the first to embrace Passbook last November.

Today the company launched a new iPhone app that allows users to search and book flights, find accommodation  and store digital boarding passes in Passbook.

Apple Buys WiFiSLAM, A Small Startup That Specializes In Indoor Mapping [Report]

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Apple has purchased a small startup called WiFiSLAM, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. The two-year-old company specializes in indoor mapping, which is something Google has already been doing with Google Maps for some time.

Since Apple debuted its own mapping technology in iOS 6, it’s been working to bring its service up to par with Google Maps. WiFiSLAM’s expertise could very well be used to improve Apple Maps, and the acquisition also bodes well for another Apple service, Passbook.

Hubbl Sends Daily Free Apps, Tailored To Your Taste, Right To Your Passbook

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Hubbl's Passbook page (left), and Cult of Mac's channel in the Hubbl app. You've added our feed, right?

If you’ve been catching our Daily Freebie posts, you’ve no doubt snagged some of the fantastic free apps out there — or been alert enough to snag an amazing deal when this or that killer app goes free for a short time. But there are other tools that help make sure you don’t miss out on all those great free apps. Hubbl is one of those tools and we’ve mentioned it in the past — but now it’s got a cool new trick that we’ve never seen before.

MLB Passbook Coming To 13 New Stadiums This Season

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This is the shape of things to come in baseball.
This is the shape of things to come in baseball.

Major League Baseball announced that it will be tripling the number of stadiums that will start accepting tickets from Apple’s Passbook app, with thirteen new stadiums coming online to enable paperless, Passbook ticketing, an increase from four stadiums that could do so last season.

Teams that will begin to accept tickets through the Passbook app include the Minnesota Twins, Baltimore Orioles, Milwaukee Brewers, Oakland A’s, Pittsburgh Pirates, Detroit Tigers and Chicago Cubs, with the New York Mets, San Francisco Giants and Kansas City Royals continuing to accept paperless tickets this way. MLB mentioned that there are three more teams ready to go Passbook, but did not specify which ones.

Apple Makes It Easy To Find Passbook Apps Again In iOS 6.1

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It's a lot easier to find Passbook-friendly iPhone apps now.
It's a lot easier to find Passbook-friendly iPhone apps now.

iOS 6.1 was suddenly unleashed on the world this afternoon, and the update includes some minor updates. There’s Fandango movie ticket purchasing through Siri, LTE support for a dozens of new carriers, individual song downloading with iTunes Match, and more.

A small but notable change in 6.1 is the re-promotion of Passbook-enabled App Store apps in Passbook itself.

Delta Air Lines Releases New iPad App, Adds Passbook And Other Features To iPhone App

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Delta Air Lines has released a completely new iPad app for its customers, and the Fly Delta iPhone app has also been updated with numerous features in the App Store. On the iPad, you can browse, book, and manage flights. There’s an in-app flight tracker and information to help you learn about where you’re going.

On the iPhone, iOS 6 users can finally take advantage of Apple’s Passbook to store boarding passes. Support for the iPhone 5’s taller display has also been added alongside additional flight management features.