Samsung has started rolling out support for hosting a digital copy of your driver’s license in the Samsung Wallet app in the State of Arizona.
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Virtual Driver’s Licenses are the last step to ditching your wallet entirely for your phone, and Samsung is inching closer to that reality. Arizona and Iowa become the first states to use virtual Driver’s Licenses through Samsung Wallet.
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While many are still waiting for driver’s licenses to become available digitally, Samsung Wallet is rolling out support for student IDs at participating schools and colleges.
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Galaxy Watch owners are getting an upgrade to Samsung Wallet, as the smartwatch app is adding support for showing boarding passes, tickets, and more from your wrist.
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Each OEM has its own little touches on Android – that’s especially the case with Samsung, which has an app for just about anything, including your touchless payment methods. In the case that you don’t want to use Samsung Wallet, you can deactivate it, uninstall or remove it from your device, and disable homescreen shortcuts. Here’s how.
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As we’re on the verge of Google’s revamp of Wallet, Samsung is doing the same. After months of teasing, Samsung Wallet is official as the merger of Samsung Pay and Samsung Pass, and the home of your ID, car keys, credit cards, and much more.
Update: Samsung Wallet is now available on the Galaxy Store, see below.
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Samsung has begun sending out an email to Samsung Wallet users notifying them that the service will no longer be available as of June 30th (via SamMobile). The email says that coupons clipped with Samsung Wallet will no longer be available after the termination date, but that all “tickets & reservations” will still be available by visiting partner applications…
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Up until now Samsung’s Wallet app had been in beta only for select users in the US, but today the app is officially available through Google Play. Before you get too excited, we should mention that it is still US-only, and as of right now you’ll need one of few select Samsung devices in order to take advantage. For those of you unfamiliar, the app stores boarding passes, coupons, tickets, etc, but doesn’t actually do NFC payments like Google Wallet or other solutions. It might not be as widely supported as something like Apple’s Passbook app yet, but the MLB, Booking.com and many others have signed to support the service. To take advantage you’ll need either a Galaxy S3, Galaxy S4, Galaxy Note 1, or Galaxy Note 2.
On a side note, Google announced it’s ending NFC redemption for gift and loyalty cards through Google Wallet, but hinted other options for storing these types of cards might return to the app.
Samsung is today officially unveiling its “Samsung Wallet” mobile app solution, and it is quickly gaining attention for similarities to Apple’s iOS 6 ticket, card, and coupon solution known as Passbook. For those familiar with Apple’s app, Samsung Wallet appears to work much the same way. The app will allow users to store event tickets, membership cards, coupons, and boarding passes in one central app. From there, users will be able to present the digital passes and companies supporting the standard can scan a barcode included for each digital ticket.
Samsung has already posted a developers document for the app to outline how devs can implement support for the app using an API (via The Verge). The document also explained how the app works and noted that users will also receive real-time notifications related to their tickets, just as Apple does with Passbook.
As for the Apple influence, aside from the look and feel of the app and icon (pictured above), the Samsung Wallet app doesn’t seem to offer any additional functionality above and beyond what Passbook already offers. The company confirmed to TheVerge that the app will initially not be integrated with NFC wallet solutions (despite a new partnership with Visa), but it did confirm partners for the app’s launch include: Walgreens, Belly, Major League Baseball Advanced Media, Expedia, Booking.com, Hotels.com, and Lufthansa.
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