Guide
Apple Wallet can make a pass itself now. When to use it, and when to use TapIn
Since iOS 27, Wallet has a plus button that turns a photo of a card into a pass. It is the right tool for a plain card on an iPhone. This page says where it stops and what TapIn does past that point.
What Wallet's Create a Pass does
Open Wallet, tap the plus, choose Create a Pass, and point the camera at the card. Wallet reads the first barcode or QR code it sees and puts it on a pass. You pick a template (a standard pass, a membership pass or an event pass, each with its own color), change the colors and the background, and edit the fields. The code is a static copy of what was on the card, which is all a membership barcode needs. It is not an access credential: a hotel key, a car key or a transit card still comes from its issuer. And it is an iPhone feature: the pass lives in Apple Wallet, and there is no Android side. That is how Apple shipped it in iOS 27; the Wallet app itself is the authority on what it does today.
What TapIn adds
- A look. Hundreds of designs in collections, from neon and brutalist to Pride flags, motorcycle and anime, every one editable. The place's logo can set the colors. Twenty patterns, eight letterings, stickers or any emoji, and your photo on the strip.
- Both wallets. The same design becomes an Apple Wallet pass on an iPhone and a Google Wallet pass on Android, so a household with one of each gets the same card.
- Thirteen code types. Code 39, Code 128, EAN-8, EAN-13, UPC-A, UPC-E, ITF, Codabar, Code 93, QR, PDF417, Aztec and Data Matrix, read live by the camera or from a photo, and the number can be typed when there is no code to read.
- Editing on the pass. Type the place's name, your name and the number straight onto the preview, and drag or tap any piece to change it.
- A picture to share without the barcode or the number, and a link that reopens the design for a friend.
- Nothing stored. Free, no account, and your name and number are never kept.
Which to use
- A plain card, an iPhone, nothing else wanted: Wallet's own button. It is built in and it is quick.
- An Android phone, or one of each at home: TapIn. Wallet's button makes nothing for Google Wallet.
- A card you want to look like something: TapIn. The design is the point of it.
- A card Wallet's camera did not read, or a number with no code: TapIn reads thirteen code types and takes a typed number.
What neither one changes
Your membership stays with the place that issued the card. Either pass carries your number, nothing more. The scanner at the desk decides whether a phone screen reads, and the only way to know is to test it once while you still have the card. If the place already offers its own wallet card, that card is also fine; a TapIn pass can sit beside it.