My PassBook Fail Story + Improvements Needed

[silver25u]

Passbook sounds great, but in practice it utterly and completely failed me today. I had 2 flights on United today so I downloaded their app and entered by flight information. As far as I can tell the United App was always up to date and correct. I added the passbook cards yesterday evening. My early morning flight was canceled and United automatically added me for the next flight out. Despite having the option to receive updates checked, I received no notice. I had to manually delete the card and re add the flight for it to show the updated information. My connecting flight changed gates and was then delayed. At no time did passbook ever update with this information. I had to once again manually delete and re add. Another thing that annoyed me was that all that ever displayed on the lock screen was a text sentence that said " United Flight XXXX Time XXXam/pm.

So before I'll use it gain they need to fix the update issue so that it actually updates like it is supposed to. I also hope for flights they have the card display on the lock screen for an hour prior to flight departure.

 

[matrix07]

Thanks for sharing.

 

[urkel]

Your story is obviously much worse than mine, but my experience at target was similar. The passbook coupons were out of date and wouldnt auto refresh so in order to use current coupons I had to open the app and find it in there.

I know these stories will be dismissed as "it will get better" or blame the user somehow, but the point is that it only takes one failure for a user to lose faith in a product. That may be unfair but thats how this stuff works, especially when dealing with Apple who used to have a better record at getting things right the first time.

 

[matrix07]

Your story is obviously much worse than mine, but my experience at target was similar. The passbook coupons were out of date and wouldnt auto refresh so in order to use current coupons I had to open the app and find it in there.
.

Did you try pull to refresh? (Admittedly this NEEDS to be automatic though)

 

[Rigby]

My connecting flight changed gates and was then delayed. At no time did passbook ever update with this information.

Yep, United does not seem to push out updates to Passbook boarding passes yet.

Another thing that annoyed me was that all that ever displayed on the lock screen was a text sentence that said " United Flight XXXX Time XXXam/pm.

Why did that annoy you? That's exactly what it's supposed to do. When you are ready to scan the boarding pass, you simply swipe the icon to the right and the card comes up.

 

[mrgraff]

The passes definitely need to update more often, or United needs to improve their push services, but you didn't have to delete and re-add if you felt the card was out of date. Simply flip it over, and then pull down the title and release to refresh.

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I know these stories will be dismissed as "it will get better" or blame the user somehow, but the point is that it only takes one failure for a user to lose faith in a product. That may be unfair but thats how this stuff works, especially when dealing with Apple who used to have a better record at getting things right the first time.

I personally think it already works right the first time. But the fault still lies with Apple. They have done an extremely poor job of explaining how PassBook works and how to use it, and more importantly why you would use it.

 

[silver25u]

Yep, United does not seem to push out updates to Passbook boarding passes yet.
Why did that annoy you? That's exactly what it's supposed to do. When you are ready to scan the boarding pass, you simply swipe the icon to the right and the card comes up.

Thanks for the tip, thats what I want - card on lock screen. My annoyance was at seemingly having to unlock the phone and then navigate to passbook for it to display. Not sure how I missed the right swipe to show the card - it wasn't obvious to me.

 

[matttye]

Thanks for the tip, thats what I want - card on lock screen. My annoyance was at seemingly having to unlock the phone and then navigate to passbook for it to display. Not sure how I missed the right swipe to show the card - it wasn't obvious to me.

You can swipe on any notification on the lock screen to jump straight to the app.

 

[Joesmith13245]

Still trying to figure out the overall value of using passbook. I get that its a centralized place to keep all your passbook enabled content. And will pop-up when you are close to the storefront. From what I can gather these are the 2main advantages over using the vendor provided IOS app. Maybe I save a few clicks?