9 Noteworthy iPhone Passbook Apps

March 17, 2013 10:38 AM

Bloomberg's Best Photos 2012: Global Technology. Images of vast diversity were captured in 2012 by our ever thoughtful and creative photographers: water drops falling across the Facebook logo; Spanish self-propelled aerial platforms reaching for the sky; and NASA's space shuttle getting its nose out in front in Florida. With striking acuity, Bloomberg's photographers honed in on both the technology companies and the technological products that affect our lives each day, see their work here in Global Technology. FILE PHOTO: "BEST PHOTOS OF 2012" (***BESTOF2012***): People stand outside a KDDI Corp. outlet prior to the launch of the Apple Inc. iPhone 5 in Tokyo, Japan, on Friday, September. 21, 2012. Apple is poised for a record iPhone 5 debut and may not be able to keep up with demand as customers lined up in Sydney, Tokyo and New York to pick up the latest model of its top-selling product. Photographer: Akio Kon/Bloomberg

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(Image: Bloomberg News)

Wolfe, Daniel

Walletini

Like magic, Walletini conceals a payment function within a ticketing app. The Passbook-compatible program allows users to resell the tickets they store within the app. Buyers pay by credit card, and sellers receive funds in a linked bank account.

Mobile Cash

Wincor Nixdorf's Mobile Cash app focuses less on payments and more on the ATM functions of a debit card. It allows users of the Passbook app to pre-program their interactions at an ATM. The app then displays a bar code to scan at a compatible ATM to complete those transactions.

Shoppers enter a Macy's Inc. store in New York, U.S., on Monday, Nov. 5, 2012. Macy's Inc. is scheduled to release earnings data on Nov. 7. Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg

Scott Eells/Bloomberg

shopkick

Shopkick's mobile app can reward users for spending with a credit card at the point of sale, but it can also reward shoppers just for showing up to a store. The Passbook-compatible app can sense audio signals hidden in the background music played at Macy's and other retailers. (Image: Bloomberg News)

The Apple Inc. logo is displayed at the company's store in the Wangfujing area of Beijing, China, on Tuesday, March 12, 2013. Apple's Wangfujing store is the largest in Asia. Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg

Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg

Apple Store

It may be counterintuitive, but Apple's own contribution to the Passbook sandbox is one of the least imaginative. It lets users access gift cards from the Apple Store app and this feature arrived a full two months after Passbook launched. (Image: Bloomberg News)

Wolfe, Daniel

Lemon

Lemon Wallet seems to compete with Passbook, but is casting itself as a way to make Passbook easier to use. Lemon lets users scan the details of their credit and debit cards using the iPhone's camera. It then turns the card info into a QR code, which can be accessed within Passbook.

A pedestrian and scooter riders pass the window of a Starbucks Corp. coffee shop in Athens, Greece, on Wednesday, June 20, 2012. All three party leaders have committed to forming a government that will keep Greece in the euro area and fight to change some austerity measures that have led the country into a fifth straight year of recession. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

Starbucks

The Starbucks app has been a trailblazer in mobile payments, proving that a retailer can get results from an app without relying on Near Field Communication chips or other approaches that aren't compatible with iPhones. It added Passbook support in October. (Image: Bloomberg News)

Donuts are displayed in the new Dunkin' Donuts store in New Delhi, India, on Tuesday, May 8, 2012. Jubilant Foodworks Ltd., the Indian distributor of Domino's Pizza Inc., plans as many as 100 Dunkin' Donuts stores in India over five years as fast-food sales grow. Photographer: Prashanth Vishwanathan/Bloomberg

Prashanth Vishwanathan/Bloomberg

Dunkin Donuts

Dunkin Donuts had no desire to let Starbucks be the only coffee-buying app for iPhone users. Dunkin launched its own mobile-pay app in August of 2012 and, in February, decided it was time to make the Donuts app compatible with Passbook. (Image: Bloomberg News)

Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter Inc. and chief executive officer of Square Inc., speaks during a television interview in New York, U.S., on Monday, Oct. 25, 2010. Square's mobile-payment technology allows smartphone users to make credit card payments and the availability of funding for new ventures. Photographer: Jin Lee/Bloomberg *** Local Caption *** Jack Dorsey

Jin Lee/Bloomberg

Square

Jack Dorsey's Square has many functions: it is a cloud-based mobile wallet, it is a hardware-based card reader, and it is a replacement for a cash register. It also is a system for issuing and redeeming virtual gift cards and those gift cards, which Square added in December, work with Apple's Passbook. (Image: Bloomberg News)

Smartphone

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Clutch

Clutch takes a "Swiss army knife" approach to mobile payments by tying in loyalty, shopping and every other function it can fit within its Passbook-compatible iPhone app. (Image: ThinkStock)