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.
frabert 47 minutes 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 10 minutes 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 17 seconds ago [-]
Mexico City is a major metropolis.
boplicity 44 minutes 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 39 minutes 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 17 minutes ago [-]
At least you can still almost always get a normal old PDF that you can print or open on your phone. Somehow these methods even work without sending gigabytes of data to 300 random services, requiring access to every sensor and going through the most botched workflows and UX choices you can imagine. A technological miracle if you ask me.
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.
freedomben 10 minutes ago [-]
I don't go to many events, but the last one I went to was a concert, and the tickets required the app and could not be screenshotted or PDFed because there was some motion thing on the QR code to ensure that it wasn't a screenshot. It really pissed me off, but there's not much I can do about it other than boycott the show.
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
bombcar 6 minutes ago [-]
The ones I've seen pretty clearly had some of the motion/change defined by the time. We're so fucked.
lesuorac 24 minutes ago [-]
It’s bad. I used to have a 6s which doesn’t have some nfc thing so most of the ticketmaster readers didn’t work and i had to go lookup how to get a barcode to appear..
Telemakhos 23 minutes 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.
saghm 31 minutes 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 22 minutes ago [-]
I found out the expensive way this year that you cannot even give someone a TicketMaster ticket. A ticket is app-based, and bound to your TicketMaster account and the only conceivable way to share it would be to give someone else your account credentials, which is stymied by the app's SMS based 2FA.
I will never give that company another dime, I don't care if John Lennon is reanimated and launches a comedy tour.
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 35 minutes 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 14 minutes 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 24 minutes 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.
rock_artist 45 minutes ago [-]
> Pass Designer beta requires macOS 27 or later
Interesting if this is due to concrete reason or not.
ladberg 34 minutes 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 38 minutes 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 26 minutes 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 1 minutes ago [-]
> Parent meant the macOS version restriction.
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.
andrewshadura 10 minutes ago [-]
Could've been a web app.
callc 34 minutes 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!
can16358p 31 minutes 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.
briandw 41 minutes ago [-]
Mostly it's a QA issue. For new features it's just much easier to ignore older OSs
NBJack 15 minutes 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 39 minutes ago [-]
Devs are expected to test on the latest OS, and this is a dev tool?
eptcyka 24 minutes ago [-]
Devs are also expected to test on any supported OS, which is a right old pain.
ceejayoz 6 minutes ago [-]
Yes, but having to have iOS 27 means all those devs have iOS 27, which makes backwards compatibility for the dev tools something they can drop more aggressively than features for the general public.
AndrewKemendo 36 minutes 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
amelius 13 minutes ago [-]
Why does my hardware vendor need to get into designing passes?
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.
jacobgkau 13 minutes 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.
cyanbane 46 minutes 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.
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?)
Apple Wallet doesn't exist on non-Apple devices, so why should this?
PufPufPuf 25 minutes ago [-]
By this logic, I'm glad Google does not limit Android development only to Chromebooks!
rahkiin 22 seconds ago [-]
Are chromebooks even viable android dev machines?
andrewshadura 7 minutes ago [-]
There are apps that allow using Apple-formatted passes on other operating systems as well.
buzzerbetrayed 26 minutes ago [-]
If not.. what?
philo23 35 minutes 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.
deepfriedchokes 36 minutes 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.
mmmlinux 13 minutes ago [-]
Apple bad brigade going hard in here.
GodelNumbering 46 minutes ago [-]
Hard to root for something that only serves to entrench the monopoly further
gumby 39 minutes 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 20 minutes 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 11 minutes ago [-]
Yeah...everyone wants access to the Apple ecosystem market, because...
...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.
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 32 minutes 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 17 minutes ago [-]
Apple does monopolize app distribution, and we've already seen the political chilling effects of their centralization worldwide:
> Passes now include interactive tiles called Featured Actions that give customers easy access to useful information through universal links to additional web pages.
benatkin 44 minutes ago [-]
These are reminiscent of NFTs, they are things you can collect, mass generated.
BryantD 39 minutes 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 33 minutes ago [-]
What is new about that feature? Couldn't you add arbitrary IDs before?
1-more 20 seconds ago [-]
Nope.
Rendered at 20:12:01 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
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.
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
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...
Interesting if this is due to concrete reason or not.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A feature, not a bug!
You need to be super up to date to be involved! Have all the devices!
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?
What is next, ASUS making electric bike motors?
1. https://www.asus.com/accessories/bike-booster/asus-oxiis/
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://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PKPASS
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.
...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" />
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.
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.