At the Mobile World Congress on Wednesday, Samsung unveiled the Android answer to Apple's ticketing app, Passbook: 'Wallet'. To see part of the presentation, head to Youtube.
TheNextWeb notes that, similar to Passbook, Wallet is able to save tickets, boarding passes, membership cards and coupons to a central hub on the phone. For now, partners in the app's launch include Walgreens, Belly, Major League Baseball Advanced Media, Expedia, Booking.com, Hotels.com and German airline Lufthansa. And because the app has an open API, it will be open to third-party developers and future partners.
If this sounds eerily similar to Apple's Passbook, you aren't the only one to think so. VentureBeat points out that even the app's icon looks similar to Apple's. This might mean we're not done hearing about giant copyright lawsuits between Apple and Samsung just yet.
But this isn't the end of Android users' ticketing woes. This tool is only available on Samsung devices. So for the time being, if an Android user wants accessibility to Wallet, they'd better have a Samsung phone. And as Kevin C. Tofel for GigaOm points out , this raises some pretty big concerns. Tofel said, "...the point of a digital wallet is to eliminate our big, bulky physical wallets that are filled with currency, cards and whatever else we need to carry. Do we really want to start carrying multiple digital wallet solutions on our devices or choose a phone based on what wallet features it supports? I certainly don’t."
Do you think this is an important development for Android phones? Or will this kind of app fall flat until Google can make it available to all Android users?
via Examiner National Edition Gadgets & Tech Channel Articles http://www.examiner.com/article/samsung-unveils-ticketing-app-wallet-at-mwc-1?cid=roadrunner