When you issue Passbook Passes with Passkit, you can be sure that you reach all your customers, and not just iOS6 users. And you don’t even have to worry about what devices your customers are carrying. Here’s how it works:
- You distribute the Pass URL to your customers and prospects by whatever channel you want.
- The customer opens the Pass
- If they are on an iPhone or iPod Touch, running iOS6, or in Safari on OSX 10.8.2, then the Pass will be displayed and the ‘Add to Passbook’ icon / link will be available. Click on that and use Passbook as normal.
- If they are on any other device (eg Android Smartphone) then PassKit renders and displays an image of the Pass – in most cases** it will look exactly like a Passbook Pass.
- If you have PassWallet installed on your smartphone you can click ‘Add to PassWallet’
- If you don’t have PassWallet installed, you can either store the Pass as a bookmark in your browser, or grab the PassWallet app.
- Your customers then use the Pass as normal.
It is important to note that your customers using iOS6 will have the best experience. Unfortunately Passes, not stored in Passbook, do not benefit from all the rich engagement features that Apple has integrated into iOS6; like lockscreen messages or realtime updates. However Attido mobile, PassWallet’s Developer, is constantly improving their app and integrating these features so that non iOS6 users will have a similar experience in the near future.
** in some older versions of Android the fonts may be slightly different to a Passbook Pass font, and we’ve found that the info button at the bottom of the Pass doesn’t always display. However you still can flip the Pass to read the back still.
