New Samsung Wallet App — Déjà Vu?

Samsung has unveiled its Wallet app during a developer conference at the Mobile World Congress on Wednesday. The app allows users to store things such as event tickets, boarding passes, membership cards, and coupons in one location. Do these features sound familiar?


Yes, that’s right. This is exactly what Apple’s Passbook app is designed to do. But there is more: The Samsung Wallet app also offers time- and location-based push notifications to notify users about their passes stored in their app. This is more than just a déjà-vu impression.

As The Verge points out, third-party developers can integrate the app, but this time Samsung has to grant access to this interaction. Passes saved within the app have a bar code which can be scanned at payment terminals.

And there is even more: During the company keynote, it became more than obvious that Apple’s Passbook app served as inspiration in terms of design as well. A quick look at the two apps’ icons confirms this.

Samsung Wallet is currently available for developers, who can download the SDK and API guides for it, and the app is scheduled to be available in Samsung’s app store in the near future, as the South Korean manufacturer will partner up with Walgreens, Belly, Major League Baseball Advanced Media, Expedia, Booking.com, Hotels.com, and Lufthansa at launch.