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I'll admit, that I love to go to Starbucks as my "get away" from the home office office. Meeting are easy to arrange at their locations, as most people in the technology world know where one is. So of late, after returning from my exhaustive 6 week European business trip and mini-vacation, I found my Starbucks card in my USA wallet, not my EU/UK version. And guess what, I've yet to switch back.
But after a week of using "cash" I remembered I had the Starbucks Mobile Card app on my iPhone (it also works on the iPad and iPod touch) so between that app, and my drivers license, a headset with mic and an Amex card, who needs more? I mean, you can do just about everything you need to do away from the office on the iPhone, iPod touch or iPad that's work related. I can check email, surf the web, make VoIP and Skype calls over the AT&T WiFI and of course get caffinated to go back to the home office and do more work.
With apps like GoToMeeting, Calliflower and WebEx, even virtual meetings are possible in what I've dubbed Conference Room S for many years.
So while you can only have the Starbucks Mobile Card active on one iOS device, it does mean my wallets a lot thinner. Digital...if you're not.. Wake up and smell the coffee.
This makes me wonder sometime why others like Wal-Mart, BestBuy, Target, Vons and other so called forward thinking retailers haven't gone to the digital bar code app, that ties together the frequent buyer club data, with a digital wallet. Forget the emerging idea of NFC (near field communications) the implementation of the digital bar code by Starbucks inside an iPhone app and it's ties to their loyalty program and balance recharge program is just plain dumb, simple. It works, and it works very well. As a matter of fact between that and the Mobil/Exxon SpeedPass the whole idea of going cashless without a "credit card" seems a lot more personalized.
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