A couple of days ago, Apple announced a new service called iTunes Pass for those in Japan, however if you were wondering what it is and what it does, you might be pleased to learn that Apple has since extended the program where it is now available in the US and Australia, and we expect that it will soon start making its way to other countries in the future.
So what is iTunes Pass? Well basically it’s a new feature of Passbook where users can enable the feature by going to the iTunes app on their mobile device and click the “Redeem” button, after which the iTunes Pass card will be issued to the user in their Passbook. The user can then head on over to an Apple Retail Store where they can then ask an Apple employee to top up their card with real money.
So essentially what this is, it’s a digital version of the iTunes Gift Card and the amount the user tops up will then be credited to their iTunes account, which in turn can be used to purchase music, apps, movies, TV shows, books, and more. It is unclear what the purpose of iTunes Pass is, especially since using it seems more complicated than a regular Gift Card.
It has been speculated that perhaps Apple is trying to get more users to use the Passbook feature, and also a way for Apple to start weaning customers off from physical Gift Cards, thus cutting down on waste where users typically tend to throw away the cards after it has been redeemed. Some have also speculated that it could be a way for Apple to slowly introduce customers to the idea of mobile payments, but what do you guys think?
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