Starbucks Gifts Coming To iOS Messages With Apple Pay

As a close working partner with Apple, worldwide coffee chain Starbucks has announced that it will be bringing deeper integration into the iOS platform in order to instantly benefit its loyal consumers.

During its annual shareholders’ meeting, the company announced that iOS users will soon be able to give the gift of Starbucks to friends, family members, and colleagues by using the native iOS Messages app in conjunction with Apple’s contactless payment platform, Apple Pay.

Other than briefly touching on the incoming new functionality, the company failed to go into any great detail about the new introduction, with no specific timeline provided, and no granular details on the exact features or functionality which would be embedded into this new Starbucks experience.

Still, given the fact that Apple now offers what is essentially a dedicated app store for the Messages app, it would be reasonable to assume that the coffee chain will embed the feature onto devices through that mechanism.

This could come as an update to the existing Starbucks app – which seems most likely – or a new Messages experience altogether.

Of course, having the ability to use Messages for this type of functionality will mean that users will need to be running iPhone or iPad powered by iOS 10 or higher. Additionally, the company has announced that it will continue to look at pushing out innovative solutions to coffee-lovers via software with the announcement that the virtual My Starbucks Barista experience will be pushed out to additional users in the coming weeks and months.

For those that may not know, this is a feature that is currently used by approximately 100,000 users and allows orders to be placed with voice or messaging rather than having to navigate directly though the app’s menus.

When this new Messages integration rolls out, it will be yet another example of Apple and Starbucks working together for the benefit of the company’s consumers. It will also be another feather in the bow of Apple Pay as a payment platform, which is already used by Starbucks quite extensively in physical stores and within its existing iOS app.

As always, as soon as more information becomes available on this one we will be sure to bring it straight to you.

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