Purchasing a physical iTunes gift card could become a thing of the past in Japan, thanks to the launch of a new service called iTunes Pass. It cuts out the need for a gift card by using the Passbook app instead.
Here’s how it works. When you visit an Apple Store in Japan in search of an iTunes, App Store, or iBookstore gift card, you now simply pay the cashier, who then credits your iTunes account by scanning a special pass inside Passbook on your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad.
Why would you want to do this? It’s more convenient than entering the ridiculously long code, and if it’s used widely, iTunes Pass could minimize the production of the little cards themselves.
It’s still early days for iTunes Pass though, and at the moment, it’s only live in Japan. It’s an interesting choice of location for several reasons. First, wireless payments using smartphones or smart cards are already very popular in the country, and second, Apple is huge there.
Recently, Japan became Apple’s number one market in the world, and there are eight Apple retail stores spread around the country, with three in Tokyo alone. Put these two factors together, and Japan becomes an obvious, and potentially very effective, testbed for the new iTunes Pass system.
Apple hasn’t announced iTunes Pass officially, or made it clear the service will launch elsewhere in the world at a later date, but with continued talk of the company introducing a mobile payment system with the iPhone 6, this could be a related test. We could hear more during the new device’s announcement, which is expected to be sometime in September or October.