Hello All,

I am absolutely in love with the Passbook App and Apple Pay feature on my iPhone 6 Plus.

The number of brick & mortar stores in my area that accept Apple Pay transactions via the NFC protocol is relatively high.  As a result, I find myself using my iPhone to make purchases at least once a week, sometimes even more.  

The one thing I would like to see added to the Passbook app is the ability to quickly and easily add store reward cards without first having to install a store-specific app.

Now I am well aware of the fact that there are a growing number of third-party apps and websites that will facilitate the creation of a passbook pass, however, given the recent data security breeches across the web, I am reluctant to give out any private purchasing information to third-party, and as far as I am concerned, unvetted entities.

Given my recent success with Passbook, I have been considering virtualizing all of my store-specific reward cards by installing an app such as KeyRing or Stocards. 

Using such an app would allow me to quickly display the virtual card on my phone’s display allowing it to be scanned at the time of purchase. 

I was planning on downloading a few such apps this evening when, earlier today, while in a brick & mortar store, I witnessed a customer hand her iPhone 6 Plus, with a virtual reward card displayed on the screen, to a store employee in order for the employee to scan the bar code.

To everyone’s surprise, the employee dropped the iPhone.  Because of a convergence of circumstances, the phone landed on the floor.  Not good. The customer was, to put it mildly, furious. 

After having seen this, I’m not certain if I want to use virtual store reward cards if doing so means that I must first hand my device to a store employee. 

A virtual reward card on your iPhone 6 Plus, be careful who you hand it to.

Mark