Apple Pass Designer (developer.apple.com)
207 points by soheilpro 2 hours ago
pastel8739 an hour ago
What do people find interesting about this? This doesn’t seem at all significant to me
giarc 33 minutes ago
I have a few apps on my phone for which the only purpose is to open and bring up a barcode (ex. Tim Hortons Scan and Pay). I'd love to delete the app and only have an Apple Wallet thing.
neom 5 minutes ago
I use an app called pass2 u wallet for this, it's clunky but works well. No affiliation.
rjh29 27 minutes ago
Starbucks on Google can be added to Google Wallet. But then I went to use it and they told me to close wallet and open the app. Shrug.
I've had patchy success with adding boarding passes to the wallet too. Support seems half baked.
mahboi 3 minutes ago
swozey 2 minutes ago
giarc 20 minutes ago
willmeyers an hour ago
Apple wallet and I've seen videos of kids on social media who make fake passes in Photoshop to get into events. This might help event coordinators deter that from happening.
jrockway an hour ago
Kind of a great point. People definitely build their own secure passes and they're always amusing (compare your boarding pass with LIRR tickets with Ticketmaster tickets; they all do something slightly different and none seem particularly secure).
iAMkenough 32 minutes ago
Kids - just bring an Android phone if you’re going to scam, since events can’t require customers to be iPhone owners, and Apple didn’t design this with universal compatibility in mind.
mahboi a minute ago
stefan_ 26 minutes ago
I suppose it's a fun insight, a solemn moment, a Fortune 10 company where AI doesn't exist and they make whimsical graphical design programs for their little AOL world.
tonymet an hour ago
many iphone customers lament at how little support Apple Wallet has, even ~ 18 years later.
Why ticketing vendors force customers to struggle with so many inconsistent and unreliable ticketing apps.
Hopefully one of the main blockers, that Wallet integration required xcode experience, will be removed with this app.
Hopefully we will get more comprehensive wallet support for event passes.
iAMkenough 6 minutes ago
The business creating passes wants a “one solution for all,” which led to poor adoption of Apple Wallet specific features.
Since this doesn’t solve “one solution for iPhone and Android,” I expect adoption to remain similar to before.
pradn an hour ago
There are free, web-based wizards to create PKPass-format Apple Wallet passes. This one was posted on HN a few months ago.
moontear an hour ago
The Locations field is underrated. If you have custom passes from your favorite stores, they pop up automatically when you are at that location.
ClikeX an hour ago
Welp, there goes one of the big selling points of one of my old employers.
drifkin an hour ago
that's what I was most excited for with the new built-in iOS pass creator, but it doesn't seem to have that feature?
jr3592 43 minutes ago
giarc 22 minutes ago
That is really neat! I've made 3, however they are all grouped together in my Apple Wallet, even though they are completely separate. Any idea why?
mortenjorck an hour ago
The one thing I hope Apple has added to the pass framework is the ability to semantically define a barcode area.
This would enable them to finally have Wallet show ONLY that rectangle at a suddenly blinding brightness level (on HDR displays) for the scanner, rather than cranking up the entire screen.
ray__ an hour ago
Every time I get blinded by this I wonder if it's really necessary at all...I can turn the brightness up myself if the QR code doesn't scan.
reaperducer 11 minutes ago
I can turn the brightness up myself if the QR code doesn't scan.
Well, you're one person. How about the other eight billion people on the planet?
Everyone is not you.
hmartin 37 minutes ago
No, you cannot manually turn on HDR on iPhone.
SirMaster 14 minutes ago
frabert 2 hours ago
Haha this is bizzarely specific to my back-of-the woods brain. Feels like something that would be super relevant to someone in San Francisco but not as much to me
brandall10 2 hours ago
I'm currently residing in Mexico City and Apple Wallet passes are ubiquitous here for any type of event purchased online... pretty much all the major bus lines use them, all the theater chains, museums, etc.
declan_roberts an hour ago
Mexico City is a major metropolis. That seems like exactly the right kind of market for this product.
brandall10 an hour ago
boplicity 2 hours ago
There are many events you can't get into now without a smartphone. Unfortunately on-phone digital tickets are far too common and far too commonly mandatory. There's a huge audience of people who are required to use them. It may be specific, but it's also what we're stuck with.
corytheboyd 2 hours ago
> There are many events you can't get into now without a smartphone.
Yeah, it's pretty bad.
At least Apple's Wallet app works offline. There is nothing worse than having to use a dogshit proprietary app, waiting for it to handshake with four thousand data collection services before you can reach your My Tickets page, in a location where cell service is shit because thousands of other people are trying to do the same thing.
tavavex 2 hours ago
lesuorac 2 hours ago
saghm 2 hours ago
I went a baseball playoff game this week with my father-in-law, and he sent me the ticket from TicketMaster in advance (not blaming him of course). I downloaded the app and logged in, and the first thing it prompted me was to select what type of events I was interested in...just to view the ticket that I already had on my account. It was skippable with some small, not-obviously-button-looking text at the bottom, so I did that, but it sucks that even when I do genuinely find digital tickets convenient, the experience is still horrible. (There was an option for exporting to Google Wallet but it kept failing, which unfortunately did not surprise me)
subpixel 2 hours ago
burningChrome 34 minutes ago
Most of the dev conferences around the Midwest have both the QR ticket code and then you can print a physical ticket as well - just in case. Speaking with people who work at the events, physical tickets are a life saver in conference halls where wifi/cell coverage is awful.
Nobody volunteering wants to be the bad guy and tell someone they can't enter the event because they don't have a digital ticket.
Of course a dev conference can be lenient. A Red Hot Chili Peppers concert? Probably not so much.
Telemakhos 2 hours ago
I think the parent poster was asking how consistent that is across geographic divides. I notice the same effect: I live part of the year in a city where public transport requires either a smartphone or tap-to-pay, and the rest of the year in a rural area where nobody assumes you're carrying a smartphone. It seems to me at least that urban areas are standardizing on requiring people to carry a smartphone for tickets, passes, even menus in some places; while this hasn't caught on in rural areas. I would bet that people in rural areas will regard Apple's event ticket maker as alien to their lives and a sign of some sort of urban folly. I wonder if there's a similar urban/rural division on users of Apple's Invites app.
tietjens 2 hours ago
Sincere question: what events?
wuhhh an hour ago
Exactly what I thought, maybe we need to get out more
doug_durham 2 hours ago
Not really. When I spend time in rural areas I see bar codes and QR codes are used everywhere. All this does is allow for the option for a business to put their barcode into your phone rather than having to carry around a paper copy. It doesn't preclude the use of paper. Your posting is a false dichotomy. The gap between urban and rural isn't that large.
stackghost 2 hours ago
I’m curious what it does that Claude or Codex can’t. Fundamentally it’s just producing an image with a QR code on it, right?
tavavex 2 hours ago
It integrates with Apple's pass system and the app they have to let users collect their cards, passes and tickets in one place (whatever it's called), it's not about creating a PNG.
waterheater 2 hours ago
In some cases, yes, but I've used a digital ticketing system (Ticketmaster) where the barcode changes about every 20 seconds. Short of reproducing that barcode generation algorithm, Claude or Codex wouldn't help.
cyanbane 2 hours ago
Even though they call it pass, this can really be used for a ton of things. Neat addition to the ecosystem, I never would have thought of putting it in the hands of normal users.
Tepix 2 hours ago
Don't you need a developer certificate at least?
jameshart 2 hours ago
I’m not sure, given these documentation steps for distributing passes, that this is intended for ‘normal users’: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/walletpasses/build...
rock_artist 2 hours ago
> Pass Designer beta requires macOS 27 or later
Interesting if this is due to concrete reason or not.
ladberg 2 hours ago
Apple has a habit of extracting any shared code between apps into an OS lib, and this is actually often easier to develop on internally than hosting shared deps elsewhere because all devs are constantly updating to the latest nightly OS release and therefore constantly getting the latest version of everyone else's libs.
The result is that it's basically impossible to write new code without it having hard dependencies on the newest OS! Kinda sucks for the outside world though.
user_7832 2 hours ago
Yeah this caught my eye too. I can't imagine any technical reason why a Mac works but a windows/Linux computer wouldn't work. Tbh this is the side of Apple I dislike the most - restricting things without any good reason.
And especially if you look at small organizations without much funding that use old PCs (or just have crappy IT departments)... it's disappointing. This kind of restriction won't stop a billion dollar LiveNation, but it absolutely could affect the local library or cafe.
coldtea 2 hours ago
> Yeah this caught my eye too. I can't imagine any technical reason why a Mac works but a windows/Linux computer wouldn't work.
Parent meant the macOS version restriction.
Why it's not for Windows/Linux is obvious. Unless it's to give Windows users access to some cross platform service or hardware (like the iPod used to be), it's not Apple's job to make software for other platforms. They're not a company making general business software like Adobe or MS.
This is to interface with macOS only Apple Wallet anyway.
user_7832 an hour ago
andrewshadura 2 hours ago
callc 2 hours ago
> restricting things without any good reason
A feature, not a bug!
You need to be super up to date to be involved! Have all the devices!
user_7832 an hour ago
can16358p 2 hours ago
Very likely they might use some common frameworks that are shared between macOS, iOS, and watchOS to design (e.g. SwiftUI) and writing the whole stack for non-Apple platforms simply wouldn't make sense.
user_7832 an hour ago
GeekyBear an hour ago
There is no technical reason for the lack of a Linux version of Microsoft Office, which is a much bigger deal.
If you want to create a custom pass for your business, just rent access to a Mac online, if you don't want to buy one.
briandw 2 hours ago
Mostly it's a QA issue. For new features it's just much easier to ignore older OSs
NBJack 2 hours ago
I really doubt that. Unless Apple has completely hosed their QA budget.
Honestly, this "app" is at best an interactive picture template with text and metadata.
The real question is, why is something this simple not just part of Apple's website?
ceejayoz 2 hours ago
Devs are expected to test on the latest OS, and this is a dev tool?
eptcyka 2 hours ago
Devs are also expected to test on any supported OS, which is a right old pain.
ceejayoz an hour ago
AndrewKemendo 2 hours ago
Knowing Apple it’s almost certainly to have verifiable (locally generated) crypto signatures for the QR/Bar codes so people can’t make their own forgeries from screenshots
mglvsky 2 hours ago
I've lurked about PKPASS[1] file format a little bit, sounds like any vibecoder can make editor of those files, but maybe I am missing something (verification?)
Someone an hour ago
Why would that be an argument for Apple not to make such an editor?
ajkjk 2 hours ago
Does it run on non-Apple devices also? If not...
ceejayoz 2 hours ago
LeoPanthera 2 hours ago
Apple Wallet doesn't exist on non-Apple devices, so why should this?
PufPufPuf 2 hours ago
By this logic, I'm glad Google does not limit Android development only to Chromebooks!
kube-system an hour ago
rahkiin an hour ago
andrewshadura an hour ago
There are apps that allow using Apple-formatted passes on other operating systems as well.
buzzerbetrayed 2 hours ago
If not.. what?
ajkjk an hour ago
if not then nobody should use it
Although perhaps I'm misunderstanding and the idea is that each wallet device requires a separate implementation and this is just Apple's version? I guess that makes sense. But if the product is "easily make passes for your business" and then they are Apple-locked, that is obnoxious and anti-consumer and people should refuse to use it.
apocalyptic0n3 29 minutes ago
deepfriedchokes 2 hours ago
Would love to see a generative AI tool that can integrate the QR/barcode into the artwork itself. Maybe in the next version… Maybe someone could vibe code that.
fwip 8 minutes ago
Seems like you could build that in ComfyUI. Mix in the QR code into the starting noise, and reinforce it after each round as necessary.
Probably a low success rate on it both looking nice and it actually scanning in the real world, though.
digitaltrees 9 minutes ago
Why?
philo23 2 hours ago
Also worth mentioning that they added an easy way to make passes directly in the wallet app on iOS 27, you can basically scan in existing barcodes and qr codes.
amelius 2 hours ago
Why does my hardware vendor need to get into designing passes?
What is next, ASUS making electric bike motors?
cr1895 an hour ago
>hardware vendor
Apple doesn't make software??
mathisfun123 27 minutes ago
there's a large contingent of strange people that think apple's services business is a side-hustle.
kelseyfrog an hour ago
Yum, yes[1]?
1. https://www.asus.com/accessories/bike-booster/asus-oxiis/
LoganDark an hour ago
I really hate that accessory. You have this teeeny tiny little wheel that's going to rub up against your tire to propel it? I'm incredibly surprised this ever worked at all.
mikestew 2 minutes ago
jacobgkau 2 hours ago
My first guess would be because these passes can be used in Apple Wallet.
In response to your edit (ignoring that you used a piece of hardware for that example): Apple makes a lot more software than ASUS. Everyone knows the software is part of an Apple product; that's been a thing the whole time macOS has only been (officially/easily) runnable on Apple products.
JMiao an hour ago
anyone not on ios 27 — i can recommend an app called “offline cards.” straightforward, clean way to add physical cards to ios wallet.
pattt 20 minutes ago
How in the world was it possible “back then” to be considered innovative and cutting-edge with just so few simple but beautiful products (iPod Classic, iPhone 4..) ?
jonathanstrange 23 minutes ago
I find it bizarre how Apple continuously ignores Steve Job's visions and seems to get away with it. I really expected there to be a little box that talks with people, is highly intelligent, and helps them to organize their daily lives. They could call it Isaac or something like that.
Yet what's new from Apple? A little color flyer design app. That would have rocked in the 1980s!
kundi 14 minutes ago
Another artificial and pointless concept to make people subjected to Apple
imagetic an hour ago
I didn't have this on my bingo card either. Ugh.
nater5000 an hour ago
Slow news day on HN, I guess.
j45 an hour ago
This is genuinely interesting. It's possible in other ways but being able to use your phone as a building access key in some cases would be great.
GodelNumbering 2 hours ago
Hard to root for something that only serves to entrench the monopoly further
gumby 2 hours ago
Whats’s the monopoly in this case?
In general, whatever else one can say about Apple, it’s hard to see them having a monopoly in anything. Apple phones are about 1/3 of all phones in use; Apple laptops are well less than 20% of all laptops (bigger than I would have guessed), their VR headsets in use might crack three digits (OK, an exaggeration, but could there be more than 100K actually in image? I doubt it), etc.
Same is true in software and services (does anyone use iMessage outside the US?), and every place that takes Apple Pay takes Google too, nd most also take Samsung; many countries just use QR codes.
braiamp 2 hours ago
The monopoly is access to a market, the market of iOS/iMac users. When someone uses their monopolistic power to restrict the way that others have access to certain users that is still using their monopoly power, just that some books are too old to consider such usage of the power of monopoly.
ChrisMarshallNY 2 hours ago
GodelNumbering 2 hours ago
Coercive/ecosystem level monopoly. They may not control the whole market but they strongly control their own ecosystem and extract rents. Surely you know how many lawsuits are currently active against them for this reason.
carlosjobim 2 hours ago
Everything which a company I don't like might do is a monopoly, and that's why I rage like Pavlovs dog any time the name is mentioned. It's very important people know my opinion on everything and everyone.
bigyabai 2 hours ago
ceejayoz 2 hours ago
The… QR code monopoly?
bix6 2 hours ago
> Pass Designer supports designs that take full advantage of the latest advances in Apple Wallet
Transaction data.
ceejayoz an hour ago
mmmlinux 2 hours ago
Apple bad brigade going hard in here.
benatkin 2 hours ago
These are reminiscent of NFTs, they are things you can collect, mass generated.
BryantD 2 hours ago
Huh. Doesn't remind me of those at all. For example, I used the other new Apple Wallet functionality yesterday to put my local library card into Apple Wallet and now I've got one less thing to carry around. Worked perfectly for checking out a book today.
dexterdog 2 hours ago
What is new about that feature? Couldn't you add arbitrary IDs before?
1-more an hour ago
benatkin an hour ago
I mean this design aspect. To me it felt like it was a bit over the top, and I could imagine them to start making limited run series of them. Looking at it again, it says that there are templates, so maybe this art was made by designers, rather than AI images generated on the fly, but I imagined that they were the latter.