Q: What is the privacy policy of People’s Card? May I make a third party card (e.g. McDonald’s) and put into my Passbook?

A: People’s Card follows the standard EULA of Apple’s App Store. You might check the details here http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/appstore/dev/stdeula/, especially the term b. d. and e.

Generally, People’s Card may collect and use technical data and related information to improve the product, as long as it’s in a form that does not personally identify you.

And People’s Card won’t offer you any permit to use third party’s proprietary content, information and material which is protected by applicable laws. There is a no-warranty rule for that. And it’s your solely responsibility to get the consent or authorization to use them. (As far as I know, some of the business would be glad to grant its customer the right, but some others would not)

I am not expert in law. So please ignore my abbreviation and refer to the original EULA if you want a precise answer.

Q: The Barcode scanner does not work.

A: The scanner button was initially designed to scan the QR code of another card made by the People’s Card app, and add that to Passbook. So if you scan other QR codes, it would just prompt an error.

With a planned future update, the QR scanner will show the text it recognized, if it’s not presenting another card that was made by People’s Card. So people could use it as a generic QR code scanner in the future.

Q: What’s the format of the bar code if I put that on membership cards and coupons?

A: It’s PDF417. Check the wikipedia article for details. And the QR code will also be support with a sooner update.

Q: What sort of scanners can be used to scan that?

A: Check your local scanner provider with the specific bar code format (PDF417). If you want to scan it on iPhone, try the free app “Barcode Scanners“.

Q: Can the barcode change for each instance that a ticket or membership card is issued?

A: Yes, you can.

Q: How do you guarantee uniqueness and prevent duplication?

A: Consider the electronic cards stored in Passbook as if they are paper based physical cards. People could (and would) duplicate them if they like. There is no guarantee of uniqueness.

Q: How do you void a coupon or ticket once it’s been used?

A: You could delete the card from the card box. And people who has the card will have its title be set as “[DELETED]. However, it’s not any kind of guarantee, since people could turn-off the auto-update of the card if they want to do so. They have full control over their own e-cards, as if they are the physical ones.

Still, consider the physical existence for coupons, membership cards, or even credit cards, there would be any method to force people destroy them after they are used / expired. You must have alternative verification mechanism.

In the real situation, there are a few ways to verify the authentic, some of them could still be used with the electronic ones. For example, if you suspect that a membership card was stolen by another one, and placed a forged photo on it,  you might want to ask he or she present another photo ID to verify. If you sent a coupon to someone which should only redeemed once, you might write down the bar code somewhere, and cancel it after it has been used.

Q: Can you assign a pre-paid dollar value, like a gift card?

A: Yes. You may do that with the current templates (in advanced mode to control the title of each field). A specific gift card kind might be added in future updates.

Q: Could I transfer my purchased card box update to another device?

A: Currently the only way to transfer the purchase is through the iOS backup data. If you restore the backup data to a new device, the card box upgrades would be kept.

With a future update, you would be able to combine all purchases from different devices, as long as they share the same iCloud account.

Please don’t hesitate to send an email to support@whenitsdone.org if you have further questions. Thank you very much!