Passbook = FAIL

thedeejay · Nov 4, 2012

I don't know if anyone experiences this with Passbook, but here in Canada we have only about 8 or 9 passbook enabled apps. Of which, one of them is Starbucks. Is it only me or do location based passbook alerts not work? I have about 5 stores favourited and I visit only 2 majority of the time. Now I have all my settings correctly; enabled in Passbook, and in the app itself. Anyone have an idea as to why doesn't it work?

Also, you gotta love how they advertise Passbook but it's not supported by majority of the big companies (well atleast here in Canada). Reminds me of when Siri was launched. Worked well in US or atleast had location-based searches in the US but was not enabled elsewhere, then they release it everywhere as a "feature" in iOS 6. Bullsh t. Tim Hortons, Wal-Mart, Ikea, Second Cup are just a few examples of major franchise/retailers, but even they don't have/support passbook. Even Apple themselves haven't updated their app. Useless..

yoyo5280 · Nov 4, 2012

Great title. /sarcasm

thedeejay said:
I don't know if anyone experiences this with Passbook, but here in Canada we have only about 8 or 9 passbook enabled apps. Of which, one of them is Starbucks... Bullsh t. Tim Hortons, Wal-Mart, Ikea, Second Cup are just a few examples of major franchise/retailers, but even they don't have/support passbook. Even Apple themselves haven't updated their app. Useless..

Due to the secretive nature of Apple, of course passbook was going to launch without a wealth of passes. In the same way the app store launched without a wealth of apps. Do you really expect every retailer to instantly have an effective pass out almost immediately after passbook launches?

thedeejay said:
Is it only me or do location based passbook alerts not work? I have about 5 stores favourited and I visit only 2 majority of the time. Now I have all my settings correctly; enabled in Passbook, and in the app itself. Anyone have an idea as to why doesn't it work?

Do you see the symbol for the GPS on the status bar of iOS? Perhaps try allowing the apps the passes were created in to use the GPS aswell.

Beeplance · Nov 4, 2012

I wouldn't use such a strong work to describe Passbook. I think the term "haven't take off completely" would be better. This feature was just introduced in iOS 6 more than 1 month ago, & honestly do you expect like 100+ apps to have passes ready? In Singapore I have less than 8 passbook-ready apps, but I expect more to come in as time progresses. Just because its a feature from Apple does NOT mean it will succeed INSTANTANEOUSLY.

quietstormSD · Nov 4, 2012

Honestly, I'm not sure of the point of passbook. Because individual apps that support passbook, all have the same functionality inside their app. I guess it makes it easier access since it's all in one place, but still, it's nothing mind blowing.

jbyun04 · Nov 4, 2012

thedeejay said:
I don't know if anyone experiences this with Passbook, but here in Canada we have only about 8 or 9 passbook enabled apps. Of which, one of them is Starbucks. Is it only me or do location based passbook alerts not work? I have about 5 stores favourited and I visit only 2 majority of the time. Now I have all my settings correctly; enabled in Passbook, and in the app itself. Anyone have an idea as to why doesn't it work?

Also, you gotta love how they advertise Passbook but it's not supported by majority of the big companies (well atleast here in Canada). Reminds me of when Siri was launched. Worked well in US or atleast had location-based searches in the US but was not enabled elsewhere, then they release it everywhere as a "feature" in iOS 6. Bullsh t. Tim Hortons, Wal-Mart, Ikea, Second Cup are just a few examples of major franchise/retailers, but even they don't have/support passbook. Even Apple themselves haven't updated their app. Useless..

Passbook is an API that JUST came out... relax.. I'm sure companies are working on adding support for it.

Starbucks activates whenever I'm near my store's location.
I just used it for my flight with United when I went from Korea to Japan and also Airbnb in Japan.

shotts56 · Nov 5, 2012

yoyo5280 said:
Great title. /sarcasm
Due to the secretive nature of Apple, of course passbook was going to launch without a wealth of passes. In the same way the app store launched without a wealth of apps. Do you really expect every retailer to instantly have an effective pass out almost immediately after passbook launches?

It's hardly instant, passbook was announced six months ago. After six months, in the UK app store (one of Apple's largest markets), we have FIVE passbook enabled app. Two of them are American airlines and one is a German airline.

Like quite a few Apple things recently, a great idea which has been poorly implemented. I can see it going the same way as Ping before too long.

surfer17 · Nov 5, 2012

As someone said previously, it hasn't entirely taken off yet.

And yes, I'm in Canada as well and yes Starbucks passbook pass does work and it does notify me when I'm near one.

In Canada, I use the Scene passbook card A LOT. One less card I have to carry in my card filled wallet. I also book tickets on my phone's cineplex app and use the passbook pass to pick up my tickets at the movie theatre. It's very convenient.

It's only a matter of time before Airmiles, Aeroplan, and other such companies hop on to the passbook wagon and we have better passbook integration.

Personally, I find passbook very useful just with the two passes (scene and starbucks). But more such services added to passbook will definitely be welcome.

brylliant · Nov 5, 2012

Passbook in the UK:
Good idea. Poor execution.

MozMan68 · Nov 5, 2012

Can't believe Delta doesn't have this...and I'm flying all week...

mattroman246 · Nov 5, 2012

total fail at least ATM

Brazuca · Nov 5, 2012

The few times I wanted to use it, it worked perfectly. Now I just want an option to add individual store cards so I can delete the third party app alltogether. But I know why this is not there yet. They want developers to manage this with a backend that has balances, schedules, etc.

Just having more and more movie tickets, airplane tickets, etc is a win.

MassiveAttack · Nov 5, 2012

Passbook is going to suffer the same fate as Ping.

OZPINHEAD · Nov 5, 2012

MassiveAttack said:
Passbook is going to suffer the same fate as Ping.

I doubt that.

CGagnon · Nov 5, 2012

I hate everyone. The API has been out less than 3 months, give it time.

iTalk · Nov 5, 2012

For me personally - as a frequent flier in the US - it is very useful to have my boarding pass show up on the lock screen, so it is most definitely not a 'FAIL'.

One possibility for the location based stuff to not work is if Passbook is utilizing the craptastic Maps app. In the US, at least where I live in a major metro, many POIs are either missing or pinned to the wrong location, so the app may not know that you are at the store based on your location (expects you to be in the ditch a couple blocks south for it to pop up, perhaps)

JackieTreehorn · Nov 5, 2012

brylliant said:
Passbook in the UK:
Good idea. Poor execution.

Sounds like most of what Microsoft did in the past 15 years.

localhost8080 · Nov 5, 2012

ive yet to use passbook.
i do have the starbucks app and the pass for it, and it tells me when i walk past a starbucks.

ive probably used siri more, and she cant understand my scottish accent one bit

BSben · Nov 7, 2012

In the UK we only have apps for airlines that are no use to me and a coffee chain that I avoid like dog poo on the pavement.
As I am not that patient with new toys, I am now bored with Passbook.

thedeejay · Nov 7, 2012

I get that it's just launched, but it would make sense to partner with the companies or to get a way to release apps that support it, before just releasing it with like 1 app that uses it. They released this haphazardly.

CB1234 · Nov 7, 2012

localhost8080 said:
ive yet to use passbook.
i do have the starbucks app and the pass for it, and it tells me when i walk past a starbucks.

ive probably used siri more, and she cant understand my scottish accent one bit

Most English population wouldn't understand you - what chance does SIRI have

WishIWasHere · Nov 7, 2012

I'm actually very happy with Passbook. Yes, it's limited at the moment, but hopefully that will change in a big way over the coming months. So far, I've used it only with coupons, which works very well in my experience. I've used the digital coupons in several stores, and in all cases but one it worked beautifully. In the one case it didn't work well, it was the fault of the, uh, legacy checkout system, not the app. I plan to try it out buying tickets through Fandango this weekend when Lincoln comes out. As far as the whole geo-fence notification, I plugged in a couple of things just to see how it worked, and it worked quite well as far as I could tell. The first thing I punched in (Just Tires added to Passbook from the ValPak app), it notified me every time I drove by. I kept forgetting to delete it, and the notification actually started to annoy me. The other thing I plugged in (half price yogurt at some yogurt shop, also from ValPak I believe), I didn't even know the place existed, but I added the coupon and sure enough it notified me when I drove past the shopping center that it was in. Contrary to what many people have said, it seems to me that Passbook is off to a nice start, albeit sluggish. I will throw in the disclaimer that I'm in the U.S.

thedeejay · Nov 7, 2012

WishIWasHere said:
I'm actually very happy with Passbook. Yes, it's limited at the moment, but hopefully that will change in a big way over the coming months. So far, I've used it only with coupons, which works very well in my experience. I've used the digital coupons in several stores, and in all cases but one it worked beautifully. In the one case it didn't work well, it was the fault of the, uh, legacy checkout system, not the app. I plan to try it out buying tickets through Fandango this weekend when Lincoln comes out. As far as the whole geo-fence notification, I plugged in a couple of things just to see how it worked, and it worked quite well as far as I could tell. The first thing I punched in (Just Tires added to Passbook from the ValPak app), it notified me every time I drove by. I kept forgetting to delete it, and the notification actually started to annoy me. The other thing I plugged in (half price yogurt at some yogurt shop, also from ValPak I believe), I didn't even know the place existed, but I added the coupon and sure enough it notified me when I drove past the shopping center that it was in. Contrary to what many people have said, it seems to me that Passbook is off to a nice start, albeit sluggish. I will throw in the disclaimer that I'm in the U.S.

See I'm kind of jealous/upset with this. I mean I'm happy for you guys (U.S.) that you have a lot more apps/functionality with Passbook, but it's us that always get screwed over, regardless of what people say. Like take for example all the coupons or stores that work with passbook. It's not a handful but a lot more then here, in Canada. Funny thing is a lot of the stores there are also here, so to me it doesn't make sense as to why they have it disabled here. Similar to how passbook released their Starbucks Passbook in the states, and then literally about 3 weeks of us b.tching finally got us the passbook.

smallnshort247 · Nov 7, 2012

I wish there were more apps used it but it hasn't been out that long. In a year lets see how much progress it's made.

WishIWasHere · Nov 7, 2012

Yeah, I can see how this would be quite frustrating for people in other parts of the world, Canada in particular since we're such close neighbors. All I can say is hang in there and look for improvements to roll out over time. And take comfort in the fact that it's not as if we've all tossed our wallets and are relying solely on Passbook. It's very limited here, but over the last couple of weeks I've seen added functionality, and it's becoming more and more clear that there is very big potential there.

bier-meister · Nov 7, 2012

I use it with Lufthansa and it's fantastic. Previously I would have to unlock my phone, open up the Lufthansa app and pull up the ticket. Now it is on the lock screen shortly before I fly and I only have to swipe Passbook to display my boarding pass when I am scanning my ticket to board.

The one issue I had recently was with a delayed flight, passbook showed my connecting flights boarding pass instead of my current flight boarding pass when it came to boarding so that was a bit annoying.

Passbook = FAIL

macrumors 65816

macrumors 68000

macrumors 68000

macrumors 65816

macrumors 6502a

macrumors 6502

macrumors member

macrumors regular

macrumors demi-god

macrumors 6502

macrumors regular

macrumors 6502a

macrumors member

macrumors regular

macrumors member

macrumors 6502

macrumors member

macrumors 65816

macrumors 65816

macrumors 6502a

macrumors regular

macrumors 65816

macrumors 6502a

macrumors regular

macrumors regular

Our Staff