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Visit a Starbucks and you can now forget about cash or cards: Just flash your phone to pay.
From today, iPhone, iPod Touch and Blackberry users will be able to pay for coffee and coffee-themed products in 6,800 of Starbucks’ own stores and in 1,000 Starbucks in Target stores. The scheme has been tested since last year in a handful of stores, and is now available nationwide.
The app doesn’t bother with complex in-store machinery or RFID chips in the phones, for obvious reasons. Instead, you just tap the number of your Starbucks Card into a free app and load it up with credit from either your card or via PayPal. When you’re ready to pay, your phone displays a QR on screen, and you just scan it using a standard reader.
Apart from convenience to you, the customer, using a phone to pay should speed up the lines in-store. Especially as most of the people in front of me are already jabbering on their phones instead of actually paying any attention to the staff at the counter. Then again, maybe hunting-for-the-Starbucks-icon-on-your home-screen will be the new hunting-for-change-in-your-wallet?
Mobile Payment Debuts Nationally at Starbucks [Starbucks]
Starbucks Card Mobile App for iPhone [Starbucks]
Starbucks Card Mobile App for BlackBerry [Starbucks]

Fuente: Gadget Lab