I joked today that Passbook was this year's Newsstand. I meant that on several levels. First, it's an app that people seem to be struggling to use. Second, it's an app that depends on being fed content that's out of Apple's control. Third, it's an app that could have done a lot better out of the gate if it had been given a little more attention out of the gate.
Rewind. Passbook was introduced at WWDC 2012 along with the rest of iOS 6. Apple Senior Vice President of iOS, Scott Forstall introduced it as "the simplest way to get all of our passes in one place" -- a single, easily accessible repository for all the gift cards, coupons, tickets, and other assorted passes that were previously scattered among a myriad, less easily accessible apps. In his demo, Passbook was pre-populated with a bunch of contenr from well known brands, including Apple, Starbucks, Target, United, MLB, and the W Hotel. Forstall showed gate updates, Lock screen notifications, and shredding passes when they were no longer needed. He did not, to the best of my recollection, show the process of acquiring a pass or actually using it.
Immediately after the WWDC keynote, I spoke to other members of the media and their reaction, like mine, was mostly positive. The QR codes that would serve as the bridge between the passes and the retailers seemed antiquated, of course, but many of us simply assumed they were a placeholder or first step towards what would eventually be a more elegant mobile transaction-based solution.
As the iPhone 5 event approached, many people, myself included, began speculating about what we might see. Apple typically has a couple unique demoes at the iPhone events, and they need features that are interesting enough for the holiday TV commercials that will follow. Passbook seemed like a good candidate. It seemed like something Apple could really show off. A couple of key partnership announcements, like a Starbucks or Target, and a demo of a pass being purchased and used seemed perfectly viable. Passbook, some of us thought, could even be a candidate for this year's Santa-themed iPhone ad, following up the FaceTime and Siri ads from previous years. Santa buying some last minute toys with Passbook powered gift certificates -- what could be better than that?
Instead, at the iPhone 5 event, we got a re-demo of Passbook from WWDC. No partner announcements. No transactional demos. Admittedly, a lot of the apps that could potential feed Passbook were and remain dismal -- little more than websites in thin app wrappers with inexcusable interfaces and frustrating transactional experiences. And scanning a code is positively, primitively, unsexy ( especially compared to what other platforms are doing with rapid, touch-and-go data exchange technologies like NFC). There was also nothing like FireMonkey and Real Racing 3, nothing where Apple brought some marquee players to Cupertino -- those who did have great looking apps and existing pass systems -- and gave them some special attention, and helped them make something really brilliant to show off at the event.
Still, developers, including major players who already had apps in the app store, or had websites or even marketing mail that could deliver Passbook passes, had had from June until September to work with the various iOS 6 beta releases. While big ships turn slowly, they still turn, and 3 months is a fair amount of turning time to create a way to push resource files, a bit of JSON, and existing scan codes.
And if three months really wasn't enough time for even the most agile, the most nimble marquee partner to get scanners installed and staff up to speed to support Passbook passes, Apple themselves just happen to be a marquee retail chain with an existing pass system (Apple Store Gift Cards), a great looking app, and the ability to scan codes. Forstall even showed an Apple Store gift card off during the Passbook demos. So I held to hope.
Then iOS 6 was released, and Passbook immediately got off to a rocky start. First, the Passbook app started users off with an experience utterly devoid of passes. Sure, Music.app starts off devoid of music, but digital music is an old, established, understood paradigm and, since the Store button was integrated, an easy one to get started with.
iBooks on the other hand, which is a more recent addition, cleverly started off with a free Winnie the Pooh book. It created a comfortable path of entry for users. Immediately upon launching it iBooks, it gave users something recognizable, something they could play with, something they could use to learn about the iBooks experience. It de-stressed the experience and brought users quickly up to speed on the app. "Hey, here's something you can play with and if you like, here's how to get much more!" is inherently a better usability than "hey, here's a big empty thing that you can go figure out how to get stuff for and then figure out how to us!"
Passbook presented itself like Newsstand -- empty but for directions to the App Store. And worse, the App Store portion took hours if not days to start working following the release of iOS 6. Like it or not, first impressions matter, which is why Apple is usually so purposeful and so clever about nailing them. Users will try something new once, twice, maybe a few times, and if it doesn't work, or if it's confusing, they'll soon stop trying it.
As much as people complain about Apple's controlling nature, they complain even more when things don't work, and often those are the things outside Apple's control. When the iPhone launched and for many years thereafter, it was bad carrier service in the U.S. Last year it was old media empires that were ploddingly slow and technologically inept when it came to producing Newsstand content to begin with, and that was after Apple and Fox held a special event to show off The Daily as a launch title.
Passbook didn't even have that. No Winnie the Pooh. No pre-populated Apple Store pass. No comfortable path of entry.
I've now used Passbook several times, and successfully if not enjoyably so. I downloaded the Cineplex Mobile app and have used it to buy a few movie tickets. It is, as I feared, a website in a thin app wrapper with an inexcusable interface and frustrating transactional experience. Ugly and imprecisely, I've been able to purchase tickets using my Paypal account and get a Passbook passes generated and loaded into Passbook. From then on, from the moment Passbook and Apple took over, the experience has been great. I've been alerted. I've been updated. I've been able to shred.
Everything has worked fantastically well -- as well as Scott Forstall showed off at WWDC 2012 and again at the iPhone 5 event. But when I've had to have the Passbook passes scanned at the movie theater and get the actual tickets (because the passes aren't the actual tickets, they're the thing you use to get the ticket...(?!)), it's been unsexy, and again that's part of the process entirely outside of Apple's control.
With Newsstand, Apple didn't go the iTunes or iBooks route, didn't establish a specific format and present the content is a consistent manner. They outsourced to publishers, and the experience suffered. With Passbook, Apple didn't offer the iTunes transaction system, didn't establish a specific format and present the process in a consistent manner. They outsourced to retailers, and the experience suffered.
When I joked that Passbook was this year's Newsstand, a bunch of people immediately replied that at least they could hide Passbook in a folder, unlike like Newsstand (which is a folder). That's not the sentiment you want to hear.
A year later, I'm still waiting for Newsstand to get better. Or, preferably, for Apple to replace it with "iNews". I'm not sure if I'm waiting for Passbook to be replaced with a more consistent, more controlled "iWallet". I expect it to eventually, though not immediately. Right now I'm still waiting and hoping for Passbook to get better. Matt Brian of The Next Web has shown how Apple is promoting Passbook using iAd, which may help, and Matthew Panzarino, also of The Next Web has shown how Apple is pushing Passbook passes from OS X Safari to iOS.
Siri, which was announced as a beta at launch, struggled with uptime and reliability at launch, but Apple has stuck with it, improved it, and extended it. And of course, because natural language interface is a hugely important part of the future. Mobile transaction payments are just as important, so expect Apple will stick with Passbook, improve it, and extend it as well.
Apple just needs to do it quickly and compellingly enough that iPhone users don't stick Passbook in a folder and forget about it.
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/6wM_EdjXjS8/story01.htm
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