The iOS 6 Review: Maps Thoroughly Investigated and More

Passbook

Passbook is one of those features that’s hard to review without actually seeing it working. At present, what we can say about Passbook comes largely from what has been announced publicly, and actual execution will require third party developer support.

Passbook is a combination data store and gateway to a variety of tokens. Apple has passed around the idea that Passbook will be used for things like coupons, boarding passes, event tickets, and loyalty cards. At present the application offers a common API for generating barcodes based on a given token, abstracting this away from developers.

Passbook entries will then come from over the web through MobileSafari as a URL, through Mail.app, or through the PassKit API which will work with companion applications or through some form of APNS (Apple Push Notifications Service).

At a high level, Passbook is a solution to a real problem on mobile devices. Smartphones are portable enough to act as replacements to a lot of cards and pieces of paper we carry with us on a regular basis. Unfortunately today we still mostly rely on a disconnected collection of mobile apps and email notifications. Passbook has the potential to clean up and unify a lot of this. 

In the past, the speculation involving Passbook was that this would be the gateway for NFC, but at present there’s nothing indicating that this is Apple’s intent. That isn’t to say it won’t come at some point in the future, however.