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Windows Phone 8.1 Adds Support for Apple's Passbook Passes

I'm one of those rubber-band-around-the-stack-of-credit-cards wallet people. I like to keep it thin with a debit card, drivers license, insurance card, one credit card and whatever discount cards I deem worthy of making the stack thicker. I find it annoying when retailers assume that I have nothing better to do than lug their card around everyday, but obviously you save too much at grocery stores not to have those cards.

All that said, when Passbook came out I was super excited to put it into action. I have yet to find a single use for it.

BTW, I even tried making my own homemade version by recreating one of my grocery card barcodes and pasting it into my screensaver on my iPhone. It didn't work unfortunately. Odd because you can do an e-ticket with Amtrak and they can scan that.
 

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D.T. said:
The MS and Apple love fest continues!

Next up: MS Cloud services replaces iCloud ...
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Doesn't need to, iCloud is based on top of Azure and Amazon's S3. I'd suggest with Amazon now stepping up with their own hardware stuff, Apple is going to switch to only using Azure.

afin said:
Interesting. Never realized it was a file type. Also surprised that apple doesn't rule over it with an iron fist.
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They can't rule over an open format, it's just a HTML/JS/CSS format.

Cougarcat said:
Isn't it already? Gruber's using it in his app, and even stars in a promotional video for Microsoft about it.
Click to expand...

Azure Mobile Services is relatively new, Gruber may be using for one of his apps but it doesn't mean everybody else is.

Cougarcat said:
Really sad Apple changed their minds about that. FaceTime would be so much more useful if everyone had it.
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TWSS37 said:
Didn't realize Passbook was open source just like FaceTiLOLOLOL
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Apple didn't change their mind, they were sued and lost the lawsuit for some of the technologies used in FaceTime.

You cannot open-source or standardized a technology without the full backing of all the companies involved in that technology.

There's a very good chance that by 2020, FaceTime becomes a standard because all the patents will have expired by then.
 
solipsism said:
I think it's just HTML, CSS, and JavaScript data in a file.
Click to expand...

The passbook is a zip file with all the images for the pass, a JSON file which contains the information about the pass. So things like the name of the pass, what image to use for background, the type of pass and other specific information depending on the type.
 
MikhailT said:
Doesn't need to, iCloud is based on top of Azure and Amazon's S3. I'd suggest with Amazon now stepping up with their own hardware stuff, Apple is going to switch to only using Azure.
Click to expand...


See reply above/below/post-quoted-response! (Hint: I know the underlying architecture :D )
 
iolinux333 said:
This.

I've started using Hangouts on my iPhone 'cause everyone else is starting to use it. I've *never* used Facetime. (facepalm for you, Apple)

Apple needs to open up their stuff or they're going right back to the '90s where I abandoned them for almost 20 years. The only thing that brought me back to an Apple product was that my MBAir can dual boot to Windows. When Apple laptops and desktops could run Apple software only, there was zero reason for me to spend money their way.

I only went to iPhone after checking that various Apps I *needed* including several Google and Microsoft apps were there, and also that Android users would have no trouble from what was happening at my end. I now need Android users to be able to see my iCloud stuff, and apple isn't letting that happen. I'm going to have to shift back away from iOS and iCloud and to something that more people use unless Apple lets some Android/Windows access pronto.
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Sounds more like you follow versus lead. If your phone has perfectly working video and chat apps built into it, why would you download another app and create a new account to do the same thing? Now if all your buddies are on Android then I guess you need to follow them and be on it too. You could also just use all Google services on your iPhone which it sounds like what you are doing now.
 
spatlese44 said:
...
BTW, I even tried making my own homemade version by recreating one of my grocery card barcodes and pasting it into my screensaver on my iPhone. It didn't work unfortunately. Odd because you can do an e-ticket with Amtrak and they can scan that.
Click to expand...

I just scanned your code with my iPhone without any issue. Maybe the store just needs to clean their scanner or you can try adjusting the brightness on your phone.
 
Oh good! Now maybe boarding passes through passbook will finally take off.

*Get it? Get it? I'll see myself out.
 
Cougarcat said:
Isn't it already? Gruber's using it in his app, and even stars in a promotional video for Microsoft about it.
Click to expand...

different services. MS cloud services are akin to Amazon's, theyre backend servers for notifications, etc. Gruber has not replaced icloud with them -- if you believe that you have a misunderstanding of what they do.

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solipsism said:
I think it's just HTML, CSS, and JavaScript data in a file.
Click to expand...

no. that example was used as a metaphor: "Think of the Passbook files like the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript data that makes up a webpage,"

...that is not to say passbook files are literally HTML, CSS, JS.

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mainstreetmark said:
I have never even seen passbook in action, in any situation. Evidently, I fly on the wrong airlines, take the wrong taxis and drink the wrong coffee.
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hard to believe, considering how many of the major US airlines use them. theyre pretty simple: open their app, find your boarding info, tap on "Open in Passbook". then arrive at the airport and have your boarding pass on your lock screen. its nice.
 
mdelvecchio said:
hard to believe, considering how many of the major US airlines use them. theyre pretty simple: open their app, find your boarding info, tap on "Open in Passbook". then arrive at the airport and have your boarding pass on your lock screen. its nice.
Click to expand...

I’ve used them for airline tickets and we used them a couple of times for movie tickets. I dug on how as we got close to the theater, the show tickets popped up on the lock screen - the second time we used them for a movie, the usher asked as I handed the phone to her “Passbook tickets?”. :)
 
Good to see Microsoft speed up again. Like them or not, competition to challenge Apple is always welcome.
 
mainstreetmark said:
I have never even seen passbook in action, in any situation. Evidently, I fly on the wrong airlines, take the wrong taxis and drink the wrong coffee.
Click to expand...

I'm not much different. So far I've only ever used it once on a return flight... note that is once, not once each way. One airport's scanner supported it, the other ones didn't. To be honest it didn't save time or hassle considering a piece of paper would have scanned equally as quick and I had to print out a boarding pass for the outbound journey anyway but I get the feeling that most people will print out a hard copy of the boarding pass anyway as a backup.

All that being said however, I still think it's a good idea and even more so if there is support for all major devices because a. it saves more paper and b. the more people using it the more support it will gain.
 
I love passbook and wish there were more apps and companies that would take advantage of it. The biggest one that kills me is AMC Movie Theaters. Come on now!
 
spatlese44 said:
I'm one of those rubber-band-around-the-stack-of-credit-cards wallet people. I like to keep it thin with a debit card, drivers license, insurance card, one credit card and whatever discount cards I deem worthy of making the stack thicker. I find it annoying when retailers assume that I have nothing better to do than lug their card around everyday, but obviously you save too much at grocery stores not to have those cards.

All that said, when Passbook came out I was super excited to put it into action. I have yet to find a single use for it.

BTW, I even tried making my own homemade version by recreating one of my grocery card barcodes and pasting it into my screensaver on my iPhone. It didn't work unfortunately. Odd because you can do an e-ticket with Amtrak and they can scan that.
Click to expand...

It'll work if you turn the brightness of your phone all the way high. When you use Passbook itself, it automatically turns up the brightness for you.
 
mrgraff said:
I just scanned your code with my iPhone without any issue. Maybe the store just needs to clean their scanner or you can try adjusting the brightness on your phone.
Click to expand...

Some scanners can't read images off phone screens. It has to do with the fact that the screen is emitting it's own light. What appears white to the eye on the screen, may not reflect the laser light the way a white solid surface would. I believe early laser scanners won't work and many of the stores with loyalty cards still have the older technology as their scanners are sufficient for reading the UPC off a label. You can read it with your iPhone because you are using a camera to "see" the image rather than relying on laser light to be reflected back.

I'm sure there's someone here who can better explain the different technologies and what's compatible with what. The suggestion to adjust brightness can help, but not in every case.
 
afin said:
Interesting. Never realized it was a file type. Also surprised that apple doesn't rule over it with an iron fist.
Click to expand...

I read this as, "Microsoft reverse engineers Passbook format," not, "Apple opens Passbook format up to Microsoft et. al." There's nothing here that says Apple won't wield this as a weapon against Microsoft. For example, they can release new extensions to the format every year, which means there will be a brief period where Microsoft's implementation is behind and unable to process newer Passbook files.

It would be quite ironic, wouldn't it, considering how often Microsoft has pulled this stunt in the past? <cough>jscript</cough>
 
MikhailT said:
Doesn't need to, iCloud is based on top of Azure and Amazon's S3. I'd suggest with Amazon now stepping up with their own hardware stuff, Apple is going to switch to only using Azure.
Click to expand...

Got a source from that? Cause all I found was they were using them in 2011 when iCloud was BETA. Nothing since then and even Daring Fireball (http://daringfireball.net/linked/2014/02/04/icloud-azure) was unable to confirm it is true today.
 
afin said:
Interesting. Never realized it was a file type. Also surprised that apple doesn't rule over it with an iron fist.
Click to expand...

Apple and Microsoft have a decades long parent cross-license agreement. That's how iPhone got real Exchange support early on and how iWork gets to play with REAL MS Office file types.

Microsoft is just typically full of NIH and doesn't play back because they want to cut off "air supply" to competitors.
 
Still have absolutely no idea of what Passbook does and how to get it to do that.
 
savar said:
I read this as, "Microsoft reverse engineers Passbook format," not, "Apple opens Passbook format up to Microsoft et. al." There's nothing here that says Apple won't wield this as a weapon against Microsoft. For example, they can release new extensions to the format every year, which means there will be a brief period where Microsoft's implementation is behind and unable to process newer Passbook files.

It would be quite ironic, wouldn't it, considering how often Microsoft has pulled this stunt in the past? <cough>jscript</cough>
Click to expand...

Microsoft did it to standards, which are supposed to be compatible between different implementations. I'm not sure Apple created Passbook to be a standard, more a proprietary solution which others reverse-engineered. I'd like it to become a standard but that's Apple's decision.
 
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