Apple Pass Designer
developer.apple.com
developer.apple.com
There's nothing interesting going on here, and I don't mean that as a criticism. There's a clear schema, no particularly clever UX needed, you can build almost all of this out of standard UI components, and the problem is well defined.
The only challenge is the actual time input for coding, and that's mostly gone today.
I'm not saying that these tools didn't exist (there are better examples than this one), but hobbyist, or open-source tools are examples of the prioritisation not mattering. Most of the little projects I've built outside of work have been objectively terrible uses of time for the result.
The last thing they need is more things to get distracted with. They don’t need LLMs, they need to care and focus on making good products.
Help us, John Ternus.
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.
(View this on your iPhone)
Well, you're one person. How about the other eight billion people on the planet?
Everyone is not you.
Some applications do want a code that's slightly less trivial to yoink than "look at a screen once, have it forever". TOTP would raise the bar there.
Someone else mentioned TOTP codes that are hard to copy
My personal gripe is that NFC readers can't read wallet passes. That's also true for google/android.
Both apple/google restrict it and only few very big retailers are using it.
Maybe what you want is for the screen to support turning up brightness for just one part?
That’s what their comment is asking for, which is why they mention HDR displays which are already common on Apple products.
How about instead agreeing a standard joint with Google, so people only need to make passes once, not separately for each smartphone platform?
Would be good if the tech companies could actually make things easier, not try to lock businesses into particular platforms, and make everyone do extra special work just for their platform.
Better late than never!
Better late than never!
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.
I'm enjoying the time before it gets really bad, because so far it's usually just the extremely large and centralized companies who let themselves engage this kind of abuse. Small venues, movie theaters, rewards programs or hotel reservations still find complex digital tickets to be too weird, and let us do things the boring old way.
Someday, I'd like to try capturing an animated gif or short MP4 or something of the motion, and see if that works, but the pragmatic part of me overwhelmed the hacker side of me. I would hate to lose my money on the ticket and not be able to see the show because I tried to hack the process
Yep, same happened to me with some baseball game tickets. So incredibly dumb.
Even worse, we split into two groups and I had to ask the other group to download the app... create an account... and finally be able to "transfer" the tickets to them. It took like ten minutes, and thank god we weren't at the park yet trying to do all that. Ugh.
The ticket stub is animated so you can't use a simple screenshot to move to a better location once inside the show.
I will never give that company another dime, I don't care if John Lennon is reanimated and launches a comedy tour.
https://help.ticketmaster.com/hc/en-us/articles/978697592667...
> Select Transfer to see if your order is eligible for transfer.
Anyone have any idea how often events are allowed to transfer? I assume the artist/venue drive this decision.
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.
And I have to say I'm happy without vendor lock-in.
They should have done this years ago.
Interesting if this is due to concrete reason or not.
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?
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.
A feature, not a bug!
You need to be super up to date to be involved! Have all the devices!
I'm not entirely sure what's the use case for most of these cards, but I'd hardly be surprised if this kind of decision didn't affect usability and accessibility for a lot of iPhone users, just because their venue guys don't have a mac.
And it's not like apple doesn't have the resources to make this software run across different types of computers. Iirc itunes and bonjour are (still?) very much developed by Apple for windows.
They want you to buy a mac.
This is step one drug dealer tactic
Honestly in this case I don’t blame them. This is a niche little app. It’s great it’s available but it’s not going to drive sales. Spending the time and money to make it work on Windows isn’t going to move enough needles to pay for the development time, QA, and support.
Not having to make it work on older versions of macOS also saves time and money. Everyone upgrades eventually. Just wait them out and the users will be ready one day.
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.
Apple would NEVER EVER do that.
Others already have. But Apple wouldn’t.
Ah thanks, I didn't realise Macos 27 is a new version.
Ironically though, I think it's kinda the same thing? Apple software is first class if you follow their rules - including having Apple hardware, being on the latest version, and so on. It's still a nice and pretty walled garden of Eden.
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.
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.
Wallet Passes are incredibly useful and people like them. I tried to create a Pass with the woefully inadequate Apple documentation years ago and ended up pivoting because it was such a pain in the ass.
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.
Since this doesn’t solve “one solution for iPhone and Android,” I expect adoption to remain similar to before.
/s
I've had patchy success with adding boarding passes to the wallet too. Support seems half baked.
EDIT - I think this is the case. When I open and close my Scan and Pay QR code it is changing each time whereas my Reward only card (in Apple Wallet) is static. Must be due to security.
I had the black background issue at concerts for years but I haven't had that problem in the last 2 years.
or without it installed?
Edit: also, it’s free.
I wish Apple also added the ability to create widgets from them. For frequent cards like the grocery store or gym, it would be convenient to have them on the side screen.
One gotcha with some of the app stuff is that, especially for scan and pay, the barcode is dynamic and you can’t avoid the app. I know that’s the case for the 7-eleven app and its barcode for loyalty/scan and pay.
I was wondering if iOS 27 Wallet opening up custom passes was going to mean I could abandon my little app, but for me it's not the right solution. It creates large portrait size passes which are designed to contain meta info about the cards purpose. What I want is a name, color and the QR or barcode. With the "Create a Pass" in Wallet I get these big things, almost all space wasted with a relatively small barcode that I can't use as a widget. So for me it's a "no", I'll stick with my own app.
Southwest boarding passes for example, they used to give me a PNG. Now it's the wallet thing that displays... a PNG. Oh look at that, my wife's iPhone is too old to use it, that's Apple's way of saying she should go buy another.
Or the workers at Amazon package drop off desks who can’t do their job because they have to help people find the return codes in the Amazon app or their emails.
You’re dead on. “Email works fine” is not the public’s experience.
I suspect this really is targeted at small organizations that want to make nice passes easily for clients. Small gyms or other places are unlikely to have staff with the knowledge to make passes and it would be a waste of their time anyway. This is far better.
Just punch in your phone number.
https://www.amazon.com/wholefoodsapp/prime-code
The web was smart. URLs were smart. We've lost a lot moving to crappy user interfaces people have to dig through. I'm have hopes this will get better soon.
Edit: Isn't there trivial fix with scanning a QR in the store that either opens the site or deep-links into the app? This is like 15 minutes of store manager time + one Claude prompt away for the mobile app, I'd think.
This used to be easy and then they moved it somewhere counterintuitive in the app that my brain refuses to remember. I swear.
Now they’ve put a QR code on the checkout console, and scanning that opens the Amazon app to the right spot. Scan a code to scan a code… modern life.
(WHat’s really ridiculous is that I’m paying with my Amazon Prime VISA card—why doesn’t that automatically get me my prime discounts? It’s my default method of payment on the Amazon site, it’s not like they don’t know about it. No, I need to jump through some other hoops to “enroll” or “link” my card or something for that to work. eyeroll )
But they could also make the app way easier. Last, I checked the stores didn’t move around randomly. They’re always in fixed locations. So why not ask for location permission and just automatically pop the code up or make it a simple option at the top of the screen whenever it detects you’re within 50 feet of a Whole Foods?
All I can think of is that they advertise the whole thing to get people in for “savings“ and then make it as hard to use as possible, so no one actually uses them.
I prefer my passes live in the Wallet app if at all possible. In addition to just being more reliable, passes can be geo-tagged, so they pop up on your lock screen when you get to your destination. So much more straightforward than hunting for emails / screenshots / etc.
I know the complaint has been banded for decades now, but the platform has gotten really insufferable after COVID.
Gotta get your kicks somewhere ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If you lift comment threads that have participation from the karma cutoff you chose you still get some discoverability.
I was going to publish it but .. it took like three hours and that was nine months ago. But I recommend making one yourself if modern hn is getting you down. Ultimately I gave myself a time out which also worked :)
I did actually wonder why this was at the top of the front page, and attempt to phrase my comment in a way that wasn’t just negative. How would you have liked me to phrase my comment in this circumstance?
Basically, instead of automatically taking a negative tone (which turns off people or turns a thread into an argument), a more positive tone would elicit more positive responses and maybe even a subject matter expert to chime in.
This comment - "This doesn’t seem at all significant to me" - comes off as negative or closed minded. We can already infer you don't understand the significance or usecase (nothing wrong with that), but the way you said it comes off as standoffish.
Notice how almost every response on your thread is now negative. If you set the tone to negative, all you're going to get is negative, combative, or non-constructive comments.
Probably a low success rate on it both looking nice and it actually scanning in the real world, though.
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.
Apple Pass Designer is just a tool for customizing what the passes a business is giving to its iOS customers looks like. It's macOS-only (Apple barely supports anything not-Apple). I assume the customizations won't translate to other apps unless those apps add support, but the passes should still work.
I am not saying there is zero value here. Just saying it is strange to see Apple focused on this type of stuff.
They've been paying for search for 20 years while making probably $2 trillion in profits (not revenue!) during the same period.
Perspective matters.
What is next, ASUS making electric bike motors?
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.
1. https://www.asus.com/accessories/bike-booster/asus-oxiis/
https://motoredbikes.com/resources/sears-bike-bug-engine-man...
Filed under “I’m kinda surprised that was ever legally sold”. (You’ll find it next to the lawn darts.)
Apple doesn't make software??
Yet what's new from Apple? A little color flyer design app. That would have rocked in the 1980s!
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.
https://9to5mac.com/2026/09/29/apple-faces-renewed-scrutiny-...
https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-apple-navalny-app-removed/328...
https://www.macobserver.com/news/apple-removes-bitchat-from-...
Unless you love licking boots, this type of bad-faith ignorance doesn't have a leg to stand on.
Isn’t that a tautology?
...anyone?
...Bueller?
Apple customers are a very lucrative demographic.
People that sell Apple apps, stand to make a lot of money; even if they have to pay 15% (unless they make over a mill).
But the reason that all those Apple customers love Apple (and they do; even if HN participants don't), is because of that walled garden and restrictive policy stuff.
So, if we destroy that, we are likely to also destroy the reason that so many people want access to the Apple ecosystem.
It's very much human nature, at work, here.
<img href="/person_sawing_off_branch_hes_sitting_on.png" />
By this same logic, United States v. Microsoft Corp. should be overturned instantaneously. Microsoft Windows was the most popular operating system in the world, and the court forced Microsoft to take actions that the majority of Windows users did not agree to when they bought their PC. By reaching in and micromanaging Microsoft's ecosystem, the US destroyed the reason that users trusted Microsoft's operating system over their competitors.
What makes iOS customers special, that their ecosystem can't be destroyed while Microsoft's can? Both are accruing market damages.
Makes for an attractive customer base. I know that there have been a number of studies, that found Apple apps make a great deal more money, per app, than Android ones (I'm sure there are special outliers in both camps, though).
I make free apps. In my case, it has nothing to do with "snobbery." I've just been doing it for most of my adult life, so I'm invested in the platform, like many of us do.
I also enjoy working in a challenging environment. I've learned to adapt.
In any case, their chunk of the market never came close to Microsoft's. Also, Microsoft aggressively went after the domains of other companies, like trying to take over the Web (with some success). Apple is protecting their own market.
You do have to be careful about cooking the goose that lays the golden eggs, though. I don't feel like people are actually "playing the tape through," and thinking about the long-term ramifications of these policies.
Nobody has to destroy anything. If you want to keep using your Apple Approval Stamped stuff, nobody wants to stop you from doing that on your own.
Instead, people are saying that other people should be free to do what they want with their devices that they own. Thats all. Keep your Apple Safe Mode On devices, just stop trying to sabotage other people's attempts to choose otherwise.
That's different from "doing what I want on my own device."
Transaction data.
https://developer.apple.com/wallet/whats-new/
It looks a lot simpler than that.
> Passes now include interactive tiles called Featured Actions that give customers easy access to useful information through universal links to additional web pages.
There are websites that let you create them. It’s not like it was impossible. But it wasn’t straightforward for the average user.
Letting any user do it right on your phone is new to iOS 27. And this app now lets small businesses do it easily.
It’s actually rather strange it took this long, seems like an obvious gap.
Same kind of stuff you would see on a loyalty card.
They’re nothing like NFTs.
They’re an optional, more convenient, way to access concert tickets you purchased or your loyalty card for your grocery store.