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AmEx, Starbucks announce plans for Passbook integration: both live by end of the month
When it launched with iOS 6 this Wednesday, Apple's Passbook mobile-ticketing feature boasted a handful of high-profile partners -- including Fandango, Live Nation, Lufthansa and Ticketmaster -- but that list still leaves plenty of room for fleshing out. According to Venture Beat, AmEx is launching integration with Passbook later today. The credit card company's Passbook functionality will include notifications for new account transactions, along with the ability to view your current balance and redeem membership rewards points. The service can also use smartphones' location to verify charges flagged as suspicious. Starbucks, which was featured in an early Passbook demo at WWDC, also announced the timeline for its integration with the service, tweeting today that an "update is coming at the end of the month" and offering no further details. Judging by Apple's earlier previews, Passbook will let customers pay with a Starbucks card. The coffee chain's Passbook functionality looks to be quite similar to its partnership with Square, which will be the go-to mobile payments option for non-iOS customers when it launches this fall.
Starbucks expands pay-by-iPhone pilot
About six months ago, we wrote about two free Starbucks apps for the iPhone and iPod touch. myStarbucks got you to the nearest caffeinated outlet and let you build your coffee, and The Starbucks Card Mobile app replaced your physical card, allowing you to have a bar code scanned and pay for your purchases. When the card ran dry, it could be refilled with caffeine-free money. The Starbucks Card Mobile app was tested at 16 Seattle stores in the Silicon Valley. Apparently, paying for coffee with an iPhone was a big success. Starbucks has expanded their test to all 1,002 outlets inside Target stores. The company is taking it one step at a time and currently has no plans to further expand it to the 11,000 Starbucks stores in the US -- yet. You will have to update your app to version 1.2.1 to take advantage of the expanded roll out, but if you have a Starbucks Card Mobile app, you've most likely already done that. So, the next time you find yourself at a Target, you'll have to find a way of justifying your purchase of a cup coffee that costs more than the shirt you just bought. [via Computerworld]
