Apple’s Passbook app has slowly but surely begun to tempt brands and businesses to offer location-aware mobile coupons and passes that make it easier to shop, travel and gain entry to events.
Many larger companies have yet to embrace the technology, one of those being Tesco – the UK’s biggest supermarket chain. The grocery giant has traditionally been a leader when it comes to innovating its online and mobile services, but its apps currently lack any kind of Passbook support (although it does offer a dedicated Clubcard app).
The great thing about Passbook is that while companies might not want, or currently be able, to offer such solutions, those with an idea and the tools can do something about it.
That’s exactly what Passverse founder Tomas McGuinness did, taking the humble Tesco Clubcard and repurposing it for Apple’s Passbook app. Over the course of a couple of days, McGuinness created a new tool that takes your Clubcard number and generates a Passbook pass that can be loaded onto your iPhone and be scanned in stores.
Instead of taking your Clubcard keyring around with you wherever you go, or fumbling to open the app, the Passbook Clubcard will be ready for you to scan when you need it.
McGuinness’ Passbook tool doesn’t just take your Clubcard barcode, it also provides an option to select your nearest store using your postcode, automatically displaying the pass when you are nearby. It even circumvents a restriction that blocks the use of traditional barcodes.
Notified of the existence of the Passbook tool, Tesco’s R&D guru Nick Lansley appears excited by the tool:
Wow great work @tomasmcguinness – @hildamj @realbenm @chrisjameshart RT Put your Tesco Clubcard into iPhone Passbook – makemeapass.azurewebsites.net
— Nick Lansley (@nicklansley) December 20, 2012
Passes are very experimental and not all of Tesco’s checkouts will be able to scan your Clubcard Passbook pass. Lansley confirms that it won’t work at self-service checkouts as the readers are unable to process a screen-generated barcode (which also affects its official app).
McGuinness says that he will look into the possibility of opening the service to add support for other retailers too.
However, if you fancy giving this a try, hit the link below. Once you’ve entered your details, just open the email on your iPhone, and add the pass. If you’re on a Mac (10.8+) you can add the pass to your iPhone via iCloud.
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