Since Apple’s release of iOS6 last September there has been a lot of talk about their new mobile wallet application called Passbook®. One innovation which has not received quite as much attention as it should is Passbook’s “Pass Relevancy” function. Some of you may already know what it is, but you may not be fully aware of how it works.
Passbook Relevancy Data is information added to each Pass regarding when and where the Pass is relevant. When a Pass is deemed relevant by the phone the operating system will notify the user and bring the Pass into the “Lock screen”. From the Lock Screen, the Pass can be immediately opened and used at the point of interest.
In the first version(v1) of Passbook, Apple has defined these notifications to be triggered by time and/or location depending on the Pass category. When you build a Passbook pass, there are five Pass categories to choose from: Coupons, Store Cards, Generic Cards, Boarding Pass and Event Ticket. Each of the different Pass categories offer different options for relevance. All Pass categories support location relevance however the location relevance radius differs. Additionally, different categories support a different number or locations allowed within each Pass. The relevant location for Boarding Passes and Event Tickets are defaulted to a large relevance radius of 1000 meters, while all other categories such as Store Cards are defaulted to a smaller relevance radius of 100 meters.
Coupons and Store Cards do not support relevant information by date but Event Tickets require it.
