Here are answers to some of the most common questions we've gotten.
Apple Wallet is your boarding passes, movie tickets, retail coupons, loyalty cards, and more now all in one place. You can add passes to Apple Wallet through apps, emails, and websites from participating airlines, theaters, stores, and more. Then you can scan your iPhone or iPod touch to check in for a flight, get into a movie, and redeem a coupon. You can also see when your coupons expire, where your concert seats are, and the balance left on that all-important coffee bar card. Wake your iPhone or iPod touch, and passes appear on your Lock screen at the appropriate time and place — like when you reach the airport or walk into the store to redeem your gift card or coupon. And if your gate changes after you’ve checked in for your flight, Apple Wallet will even alert you to make sure you’re not relaxing in the wrong terminal.
When you purchase a ticket, coupon, card, or pass, you no longer have to carry paper copies of them. Instead, a URL, mail attachment, or link from a 3rd party application allows you to open and store passes in Apple Wallet. Once a pass is there, Apple Wallet categorizes each ticket, coupon, pass, or card by type in a neat and organized interface. The barcode that appears on the pass can contain information like your name, flight number, or loyalty information. The code can be scanned by a participating retailer or airline just like they would your paper code. In order to get this benefit, the merchant has to support Apple Wallet (or at least be able to scan barcodes off a screen), so keep watching our list of official Apple Wallet merchants.
Passes are only officially designed to work on iPhones, Apple Watch, and iPod touches (but unfortunately not iPads) runing iOS 6 or later. However, our site generates a virtual pass that can be viewed from any modern web browser so you can use our passes on Windows, Android, iPad or whatever you carry around. Additionally, Android users can get push updates and join the fun by downloading Wallet Passes from the Android marketplace. And it appears that Windows Phone 8.1 and later natively support passes (but without push updates).
We also officially support the following Android apps: Wallet Passes, Pass Wallet, Attido Pass, Android Pass, and Pass2U.
There is no set limit to the number of passes you can store. You must manually remove passes from Apple Wallet.
Tap the circle with three dots (•••) button in the upper right corner of the screen and select "Pass Details" to view the pass details. Then tap the "Remove Pass" button and confirm removal of the pass. If you have iCloud sync enabled, this will delete the pass from all your synced devices.
Passbook was announced by Apple at their 2012 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). Our site was the first one up 4 days after the announcement! In 2015, Apple renamed Passbook to Apple Wallet since it is now home for Apple Pay in addition to the Passbook features.
You will have to decode the message in the barcode you're trying to copy. You can use our Pass Scanner app on the app store to decode 2D passes. Tap and hold on the text to copy.
The "point" depends on what you're trying to do. If you're trying to get all your life digitized and get rid of your keytags and paper and cards, then the "point" is to get businesses on board so that everyone is moving forward on the same page. If you'd like to continue using your physical card, by all means continue to do so. Our service is for people who like being cutting edge or who want to be environmentally responsible by cutting waste. We can help companies do this, but the customers need to put pressure on the companies to encourage them to do so.
We have set up a demo that you can use to see how geofencing and push notifications are displayed.
Some of our demo templates have special updaters built in, but in order to update, you will need to flip the card around to the back side by pressing the (i) button in the lower right of the pass and then tapping on the update link. Other passes are just shells (like a blank piece of stationary) where you can write in your information to keep it with you. Unfortunately this is a manual process unless the company chooses to integrate with our servers. To encourage them to do so, contact them (information can be found at our requests page).
Unfortunately, standard 1D barcodes do not scan very well with many scanners (lasers usually won't pick it up at all and many companies do not have optical scanners). Apple has decided to only support QR, Aztec, and PDF417 formatted barcodes in Apple Wallet to minimize scanning issues. They have decided that starting with iOS 9, they will be adding support for Code 128, however this still requires optical-capable scanners.
Personal and Professional accounts have access to a template editor which allows changing all images. Some templates do allow end-users to upload their own images.
Please flip the pass over and tap and hold the update link and tap "Copy" when the sheet appears. Please include this link in your email so that we can troubleshoot the issue. Passes will only work with merchants with optical scanners, so if you're creating your own pass, you should contact the company and tell them you want Apple Wallet support.
Double-check that the location is exactly in the same spot you are. You can check the Compass app to get your current coordinates. Even being 0.001 off can be far enough away not to trigger. We typically use the "What's here?" feature of Google maps to get the proper coordinates. Also double-check your privacy settings and make sure location services are enabled for Wallet and System Services. If you're on an Android device, you may need to wait or restart the device for this to work.
We've had some reports that people have issues when using Chrome to download passes. You may have better luck if you use Safari or Firefox.
The most common reason a pass won't install is because there was a value set for the appLaunchURL field. This field is only supported when an associatedStoreIdentifier is set and can be used to launch directly into an app. Do not put anything here unless you are an app developer with an app in the app store or your pass will be invalid and will give the error when you try to install the pass. The other reason for an invalid pass is sometimes an incorrect date value for a date field. If you have checked these and still get the error, email us the link to the pass and we can investigate further for you.
PassSource is a product of Kudit LLC which has been around since just before the original iPhone launch in 2007. We created PassSource.com to allow mere mortals to create passes 5 days after Apple announced Passbook in 2012. We have been providing Apple Wallet services ever since with no plans to stop!
There is no charge to create and use any of our free public templates. If you'd like to make more advanced customizations or use the API, take a look at our pricing page for costs of our personal and professional accounts.
Free accounts do not have full creative control over passes, however, all of our paid accounts will allow you to fully customize your passes!
Of course not! When you sign up for a subscription, that is the rate you have agreed to pay us. If we decide to raise our rates, you will continue to pay the rate you signed up at as long as your subscription stays active. We won't stick you with hidden fees or increase your rates behind your back. That's not who we are nor who we want to be and thankfully our business model supports that.
Our website is not the only way of creating passes. You could of course have your own web server, purchase an SSL certificate, purchase an Apple Developer account for $99/year, create your own PassTypeID, generate a signing certificate, build out the passes by hand, add in all the assets and create a manifest file, use a signing tool to sign the pass using Apple's certificate, compress the pass, register the pass with Apple's push notification servers, create an https web service to handle pass updates, and check Apple's feedback server for errors. Or you could just let us handle all of that for you and use our WYSIWYG editor to design and generate your pass with the information you want.
If you're a company and want a pass for any purpose, contact us and we'll make sure you get taken care of! We are happy to create simple official passes for companies upon request.
If you are a customer of an existing company, we would suggest contacting the company before anything else. Passes should be created by the merchant in order to ensure support.
If you're looking to create a pass to avoid carrying physical cards, we can create a template for you (see our pricing page for costs) but there is no guarantee the location will accept it as that depends on the store's policy and technical capabilities. If you'd like to run a test to see if a location will accept the digital version, take a clear picture of the barcode of your pass (be sure the lighting is good so there is good contrast) and bring it to the location. If that works, send us that picture and a picture of the front and back of the card and we can help get your template set up (we use these only for template design and this information is not shared with anyone). If the test doesn't work, you may need to talk to the manager about adding Apple Wallet support to their business. If you send us his or her contact information, we'd be happy to talk to him or her about getting set up.
Our passes support everything the Apple Wallet pass format supports, so that does include geofenced presentation on the lock screen for up to 10 locations or general geolocation when in proximity to iBeacons. If you want the technical details of how this works, please refer to Apple's documentation on relevancy features for how the relevant location and time fields interact with the various passes.
Currently, Apple restricts the use of NFCs to those that are part of the MFI program and thus is not available to the public. Unencrypted NFC data is not currently supported by Apple Wallet in any pass. We are monitoring the platform and should this change, we will add this capability.
We have a beautiful new visual editor that allows you to see excatly what your pass will look like to users that eliminates the need to know any JSON (or even what JSON is). This simple interface will allow you to specify the fields, values, colors, and images and even has several power-user features for professional accounts including making custom registration forms for your users to fill out.
Payments use PayPal's instant payment notification service to automatically and immediately activate your account. So whether you're in Sydney, Australia or New York, New York or anywhere in between, you should be up and running whenever you're ready!
We believe in knowing exactly how much something will cost with no surprises. Therefore, instead of charging per pass or per user, we have a flat subscription rate for all our accounts. If an individual account is abusing the system, we may have to re-evaluate, but since we launched, we have offered unlimited pass creation to our customers and have yet to experience any issues (even with the larger corporations issuing thousands of passes a day).
We will keep your pass data around as long as we need to make updates or issue passes or notifications. Passes that have not been updated in over 2 years may be subject to deletion from our servers, however, once a pass is installed, it will stay on the device until it is removed by the user. We are unable to remove a pass automatically from a user's device.
To add geolocation to a template (for paid accounts), we would suggest using Google maps to look up the coordinates of the location (search for the address, then click the exact location and select "What's here" and copy the longitude and latitude values). Then, under the Pass Options section of the template, add a location and paste in the coordinates then add some text to appear at the location.
That's fantastic! The best way to support us is to spread the word or sign up for one of our paid accounts. If you would like to make a donation, you can send us money on PayPal using the email [email protected]
Our passes are never automatically removed from Apple Wallet once they are added, so you can create as many passes for yourself as you want during your first month without fear that they will disappear when your subscription ends. If you wish to distribute your business card to others, you can link to the specific pass you create and update your information on the pass and everyone who has the pass will get an update as long as your subscription is active. However, if you do not have an active subscription, you will not be able to update your passes or modify them or create new copies of them. Also, if you have a personal account, passes are created individually so you can't create multiple passes from a single template like you can with a professional account.
If you have a personal account, passes only appear if they are created while you're logged in so make sure you go to http://www.passsource.com on your phone if that's where you're creating them and log in with your account.
To create your own passes, after logging in, go to "Create Template", then select the base template you'd like to copy.
You can click on the visual editor to quickly jump to the editor for that information by clicking on the pass. Colors and other fields are in the Visual Options section and individual pass fields can be added and edited from the Apple Wallet Fields section.
If you need help or want to do something specific, please don't hesitate to ask us! Just be sure to tell us what exactly you're trying to do and what your account number is and the template ID if you've already started.
If you've already purchased the personal account and want to upgrade, just let us know after you've purchased the professional account and we'll refund the personal account subscription and cancel it for you if you haven't already.
If you no longer need to update or create passes, you can cancel your subscription by finding the subscription in your PayPal account and clicking the "Cancel Subscription" link at the bottom of the subscription page. Your account will stay at the level you paid for until your next billing cycle.
Sort-of. You may distribute a specific pass, however, access to the API for creating and tracking new passes, tracking installs, and generating multiple passes from a template are features only available to our professional accounts. Additionally, personal passes cannot use any PassScan features for invalidating or updating passes. This would work fine for a generic coupon, flyer, or business card, but would not work well for loyalty cards, membership cards, tickets, store cards, or single-use coupons. Additionally, there will be text on the back of the pass indicating that it was made with PassSource.com.
The subscription is for a month's access to PassSource.com for creating custom templates and passes for Apple Wallet.
If you only wanted to try it out, you can cancel your subscription and continue to create templates until your subscription expires. At that point, any passes created will still work, you just will not be able to update them or create new ones. Of course you can choose to upgrade to a personal or professional account at any point in the future to regain these abilities.
It depends on how you integrate it. If you are creating a pass that your scanners will scan, then your system will act the same as if their membership expired with a traditional physical pass. If you're using our PassScan solution, you can update values on the pass and update the scanning logic to flag it as invalidated when they try to scan it. Remember, we're happy to answer any questions you have with integration.
Most definitely! The first thing you'll need to know is if your existing system scans 2D barcodes (QR, PDF417 or Aztec format). If so, setting this up will be a piece of cake. All you would need to do is create a template for your business and then distribute passes to the members (or we can create a widget for your website where they can enter their member number and have it create a pass for them). If you have a list of emails linked to the member numbers, you could send out an email blast to the members with links to passes with their member information pre-filled. If you don't need the pass to display any account information, there's no need to integrate with any software. In order to distribute passes and create your own template, you will need a professional account, but we'll help you get everything set up and we can even help you design the pass.
If you don't have a 2d scanner, you have 3 options:
Don't worry if this is all over your head. We can help you! Just tell us whatever you know about your system and we can take it from there.
Yes, you can use our Pass Scanner app to broadcast an iBeacon signal. This requires Bluetooth 4.0 (iPhone 4S and later, iPad 3rd generation and later, iPod Touch 5th generation and later, or iPad mini.
We can certainly help with that. All you need to get this set up is a professional account and an iOS device with a good camera and our free Pass Scanner app from the App Store. Shoot us an email when you've signed up and we can help set up and create your template, give you QR codes to distribute your pass, and set up your scanner to start using the passes immediately!
There are multiple ways customers can acquire passes. Our passes are all able to be generated and downloaded via links, so you can either provide the customer with a customized link in an email blast, or post a link on your website or Facebook page, or create a QR code customers can scan or even send them a pass file if you prefer. We can help with any of those forms of distribution.
Our service does not require a developer certificate, however, if you are a big name, you will probably want to use your own certificate which you can provide to us and we can handle the heavy lifting of the notifications and pass signing.
Yes. We do offer a professional account you can purchase from your account page. That enables access to the API and distribution of passes as well as updating passes with push notifications. We can even set up managed accounts and our entire interface can be whitelabelled and rebranded!
Yes, we are tracking pass installs and creations and updates. There is a template portal that shows you the number of passes created, installed, deleted, etc. and gives you access to edit those passes. You can also fetch the data from our API to do custom visualizations. If you need something specific, we can generate a report for you.
Of course! Just shoot us an email and tell us some of the specifics about your system and what you'd like to do. We have an API for PassSource so you can integrate these features without having to know anything about generating passes or Apple's Update Services.
Yes! Professional account passes can be white-labeled unless marked as public (since public passes are viewable on PassSource.com). Our registration forms and portal and edit pages can all be customized with your logo and branding as well.
We do not impose any artificial limits to the number of passes for either personal or professional accounts. If an individual account is abusing the system, we may re-visit this policy, however, you may consider the accounts unlimited as our servers have been serving thousands of passes daily without issue. If you attempt to push updates to more than 100 installed passes, the system will throttle the updates and update 100 each minute until all passes are updated. If you're attempting to send more than 100 updates with a personal account, you may want to consider if a professional account would be more appropriate.
Unlike some other companies, we do not have any restrictions on API calls or charge for pass updates. The Professional account includes unlimited API calls and pass updates as long as you maintain an active subscription. And even if you decide to downgrade for a while and then come back, you can resume making API calls as if nothing ever changed.
Yes! Changes to the template will update all passes based on the template. You can also use PassSource conditions to conditionally show fields including the barcode. And you can always use the API to remove or add the barcode dynamically per pass.
Yup. It's a known bug for passes with shared passTypeIDs. Restarting your device will reset which icon is chosen but then it will be set for that passTypeID, even if you delete the pass! If you file a bug or send Apple feedback, you can reference radar:12044637. If you need us to set up a unique passTypeID for you (which will avoid this issue), let us know.
If you're not providing your clientHash, make sure that the field is marked as user editable. If you are still having trouble, please email us the url that's failing.
PassWallet only supports updates of fields on the front of the pass, so if the update you're looking for is in the backFields array, the update will not be shown. If you have questions on PassWallet, you can contact them here
Make sure you're doing the following in your CURL code (this is for PHP. Please make sure the equivalent flag is set depending on your language):
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);
Passes use the W3C timestamp format. For more information, visit https://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-datetime
Send feedback (or kudos! We love kudos!) to [email protected]. If you need more immediate support, hit us up on Twitter or Facebook.