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Friday Favorite: Lemon Wallet
Back in the frosty days of February, the guys over at Distil Union sent me one of their very cool Wally iPhone 5 wallets to try out. That ended up being a fortuitous review for a few reasons. First, I found out that the back pain I had experienced for the previous year was due to having a George Costanza (i.e., thick) wallet in my right rear pocket, and second, it pointed me in the direction of Lemon Wallet (free, Plus service available for US$40/year in-app purchase). Lemon Wallet (now in version 7.1.1) has become a favorite of mine for exactly one reason -- it allows me to take a lot of things out of my physical wallet that I really don't want to lug around. What kind of things? Oh, like those frequent shopper cards that businesses like you to sign up for so that after $10,000 in purchases you can get a free can of Spam. Or membership cards for organizations that never require you to actually show the card. Even those credfit or debit cards that you never use, but keep around just in case... To enter cards of any sort, you start out by taking a picture of them. For a credit card, you're then asked to type in your cardholder name. The app uses OCR to make an attempt at filling in the card number and does a pretty good job; if it's wrong, there's a simple way to correct the information. That same OCR capability also tries to pick up the card expiration date, once again allowing for corrections if it selected the wrong date. It's then time to give the card a name like "Company Visa", enter information like the issuing bank's phone number, and then you drag a little window over the CVV number on the back of the card to highlight it. %Gallery-189955% What you end up getting in your virtual wallet is a fairly accurate representation of what your card looks like. I find this to be quite helpful when I am making an online order and don't want to dig out my wallet -- I just go into Lemon Wallet, pull up the virtual card and grab the information from it. One more feature -- any card that you create can added to Passbook with a tap. That's not a good idea for credit cards, but perfect for those membership cards you want to keep at hand. With the free account, you get an up-to-the-minute card balance for one credit card in your virtual wallet. That Plus service I talked about earlier expands that to all of your credit cards in Lemon Wallet through BillGuard. For each card, the balance shows up along with a list of "questionable" charges that you can approve or flag for review. With the Plus feature, every credit or debit card is monitored, and you'll get balance updates, notification of expiration dates, and if you lose your real wallet, you can cancel and restore all of your cards with one tap. One other feature of Lemon Wallet that I don't currently use (but should!) is its ability to let you capture receipts for expense-tracking purposes. You simply snap a photo, add some details and you get a history of all of those purchases you've made. With the Plus plan, the raw data can be exported either as a CSV file or sent to Expensify, Evernote or Box. One note: many reviewers on the App Store were complaining that Lemon Wallet previously did an OCR scan of all of your receipts as well, making it much easier to compile receipt data. Many of the negative reviews I've been seeing say that this much-desired feature was removed in the most recent version update. With all of this personal information, most readers probably wonder how good the app security is. The data is stored and encrypted on your device, then backed up to the cloud. A PIN is required to look at just about anything, and if you go for the Plus service, you'll also get App Lock for adding one more layer of password protection to the app. I've been pretty happy with the app, and it seems to get fairly good reviews on the App Store, except from people who want all of the Plus features at no cost and think it's a "rip off, man!" Anything that keeps me from having to carry a two-inch-thick wallet is OK in my book.
Google Wallet to phase out prepaid card, cut-off date set for October 17th
Google Wallet's prepaid card concept has been plagued with its share of security concerns, and though Mountain View seems to have sorted out those issues, it's now phasing out the prepaid card program entirely. The service was intended to make up for a limited choice in debit and credit cards, and now that Google Wallet accepts any and all plastic, the prepaid option is a bit moot. The cut-off date for adding funds to a Google prepaid card is September 17th, and the prepaid option will vanish entirely on October 17th. Whereas users were previously charged $2.00 per month after 180 days without a transaction, they'll get slapped with the same fee after 30 days of no purchases. Google says you can request a refund if you have a remaining balance after the prepaid option kicks the bucket, though it's probably a good idea to just go ahead and spend those leftover dollars. [Thanks, Chris]
MasterCard denies BitCoin card rumors, BitInstant says it's still on track
Well, BitInstant is insistent that it will launch a BitCoin debit card, but MasterCard is claiming it will not be part of the plans. After a mock up of the plastic made the rounds featuring the company's logo, the financial powerhouse felt it necessary to reach out to us, clarifying its non-involvement. "MasterCard has no relationship with BitInstant. There are issuers who allow the conversion of Bitcoins to US dollars and other currencies, delivered on prepaid cards. However, we're not aware of this particular programme from BitInstant." Of course, if you read the transcript of Charlie Shrem's chat announcing the plans, he never actually names MasterCard. The logo was likely meant as a placeholder -- one that some outlets took a little too literally. Interestingly, this doesn't actually mean that MasterCard won't be involved... just that the company isn't at this point in the process. BitInstant released its own statement, just hours after the card house contacted us, saying that it has been working with MasterCard affiliates, but had yet to submit to the financial firm directly. "The card program is moving forward and the arrangement with MasterCard will be handled in due time at the proper stage of the process by the partners who work directly with that company." So, what have we learned today? Not a whole heck of a lot actually, other than the fact that putting out a debit card is a complicated business. You'll just have to stay tuned to see how this shakes out.
BitInstant founder says BitCoin debit card to launch within next two months
A BitCoin debit card could be in your very near future thanks to the efforts of trader-backed BitInstant. That fund transfer outfit, dedicated solely to the digital currency, has partnered with an undisclosed international bank to launch a branded debit card within six to eight weeks. News of the development first surfaced yesterday during an online chat with company co-founder, Charlie Shrem, in which he confirmed the cards would cost users $10 apiece to purchase and carry a 1% bitcoin transfer fee, as well as $1.50 ATM withdrawal fee. To further streamline the exchange process, users will be able to make quick transfers under $1000 by scanning a QR code overlay on front or by accessing the personal BitCoin address listed on back -- all possible with a single confirmation. Initially, the cards will be denominated solely for USD, GBP and EUR, but more foreign currencies could soon be added in the lead up to its official debut. For now, those are the only bits Shrem was willing to share, as further details on this plastic alternative will be forthcoming prior to official launch. Until then, there's always AMEX.
iCache Geode claims title of first shipping iPhone e-wallet, asks 'who needs NFC?'
Apple has been sending mixed signals as to whether or not it will bring NFC to the iPhone for mobile payments, but iCache clearly isn't waiting for the technology to show its face -- the company just started shipping its Geode e-wallet. As we saw just a few weeks ago, the Geode simply rolls existing credit and debit cards into a proxy GeoCard that's scanned at the store to handle transactions. Although it demands a specially-made case with an e-paper screen and fingerprint reader, not to mention an app to manage the attached cards, the choice lets an iPhone owner buy goods at all the usual places instead of having to hunt down special terminals. We like the one-card universe it creates, although it's clear the shopper has to carry a lot of the responsibility for making this digital payment dream a reality: at $200 a pop, the Geode's wallet-slimming effect carries a premium, especially since it won't work with anything besides an iPhone 4 or 4S.
Barclays releases PayTag: the NFC card you glue to your phone (video)
If you don't have a fancy NFC-enabled phone then it's hard to join the mobile wallet club. Fortunately, Barclays has introduced the PayTag that turns any phone into a contactless card. It's a square of plastic a quarter the size of a credit card that's sticky on one side -- yup, you just jam it on the back of your phone and hey presto, you can buy sandwiches, or any purchase up to £15 (£20 from June), without opening your wallet. The sticky squares will be rolling out exclusively to British Barclaycard customers over the next few months, although we're not sure what it'll do to the trade-in value of your handset.
