The demise of the printed ticket has moved a big step closer with the PassBook app, which enables smartphones to become digital tickets.

According to the AFR, PassBook is intended to act as a ‘central store’ for tickets, coupons, loyalty cards, gift cards and the like, none of which will ever be printed.

Consumers using PassBook will be able to buy their movie tickets, plane tickets, concert tickets and any other kind of ticket, coupon or whatever online, the electronic ticket will then be loaded into PassBook, and when they board a plane, enter a stadium or front up at the shop’s POS the phone will be scanned and they will gain entry.

Already, across the ditch, Qantas has just started using PassBook for boarding passes, having dispensed with tickets a while ago. Punters booking tickets for concerts and the like have to in the main print out their own tickets which are bar coded to protect integrity, but PassBook does away with all of that.