Windows Phone 8.1 offers limited support for your Apple Passbook passes

Microsoft has made quite a few useful improvements in Windows Phone 8.1 and many Android and iOS users might end up moving base after seeing what Microsoft has done, especially with Cortana. If any iPhone users are among them, then they can take their Passbook passes with them. Windows Phone 8.1 is offering native support for Apple’s Passbook passes according to Tom Warren of The Verge. 

Windows Phone 8.1 supports Apple's Passbook natively. I've been using it for flights. Works perfectly pic.twitter.com/MFScqvEVU7 — Tom Warren (@tomwarren) April 14, 2014

 Passbook was introduced by Apple with iOS 6 in 2012 for users to store all their digital passes such as tickets, boarding passes, coupons, loyalty cards, etc. Microsoft has its very own Wallet app which offers similar features, but Microsoft seems to have a figured out a method that will actually convert a Passbook file into a card ready to be imported into Microsoft Wallet. Rene Ritchie of iMore explains this in more detail, “Passbook passes are just collection of data that get rendered into a card and displayed in Apple's Passbook app. Think of the Passbook files like the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript data that makes up a webpage, and the Passbook app like the browser that renders the actual page. It looks like Windows Phone 8 is taking the same data and rendering a similar card out of it, and then pushing that card to Microsoft Wallet.” There is one issue with Microsoft’s feature. It cannot update the passes in real time. The Passbook feature of iOS 6 can update information such as change in flight time or gate number within a pass. Although Microsoft has offered apparently native support, the passes do not get updated in real time. Right now it is not clear whether Microsoft and Apple have any agreement to use Passbook or the former has introduced this feature without the knowledge of Apple. Considering the turn of events in its current patent trial with Samsung, Apple might not be too kind on the Redmond company, if it is found to be infringing on any copyright. One thing that might save Microsoft is that the data file structure of the Passbook can be downloaded for free from Apple’s website. So in a way, Apple is enabling this feature.