How to use Apple Wallet to pay for things and store tickets and loyalty cards on your iPhone

Apple Wallet was announced at WWDC. Here's how it works.

There's a new app coming to your iPhone - Apple Wallet, here's how to use it.

WWDC saw plenty of new arrivals... and one departure, with Jennifer Bailey, Vice President of Apple Pay, announcing the demise of Passbook. It’s stepping aside to make room for Apple Wallet, which will store not only your credit and debits cards – as Passbook did – but store, loyalty and rewards cards, too.

Apple Wallet will make it really easy to pay for your shopping in shops that support Apple Pay, but to use Apple Pay you will need to set up Apple Wallet.

What will Apple Wallet do?

Wallet will do everything that Passbook did, so it’s still the place to look for boarding cards and tickets as well as payment options, but the new name reflects its extended remit.

It’s a core component of Apple Pay, being the app through which you’ll select the cards that you use to make purchases in as diverse a range of outlets as Marks and Spencer, Pret and Transport for London. Even the Post Office is getting in on the act, so it’s likely Apple Wallet will be a first-screen resident on many an iPhone 6.

In all, 250,000 UK outlets will have Apple Pay-compatible terminals you can use with cards stored in Apple Wallet, which is more than Apple launched its payment service with in the US.

Seven out of ten UK credit and debit cards will work with the system from day one.

Apple Wallet is a key component of iOS 9, so is available to developers immediately, and to the wider public as part of the open beta, which will be rolling out in July.

How to set up Apple Wallet..?

Currently Passbook stores your boarding passes, cinema tickets, and the like. When Apple Wallet arrives it will let you add your credit and debit cards as well.

If you have a credit or debit card set up with your iTunes account it is easy to add it to Apple Wallet. Just enter the card security code and the information will be associated with your account.

If you want to add more cards to Apple Wallet tap the plus sign. The instructions differ depending on which device you are using:

For the iPhone tap Passbook & Apple Pay > Add Credit or Debit Card

For the iPad open Setting > Passbook & Apple Pay > Add Credit or Debit Card

On the Watch open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone, tap Passbook & Apple Pay > Add Credit or Debit Card.

Which UK loyalty cards will work with Apple Wallet?

As well as storing your credit and debit card info so that you can make payments in store, the Apple Wallet app will be able to store loyalty cards that you can use to collect points when you make payments.

Apple's Bailey talked briefly about the US loyalty cards that Wallet will support at launch, but details of UK brands have yet to be announced. We’re not holding our breaths for the biggest players, such as Nectar and the Tesco Clubcard, and think it’s more likely that smaller stand-alone brands would look on the scheme more favourably in the first instance, even if it doesn’t form part of their immediate plans.

Costa, for example, which has signed up for Apple Pay and offers customers reward points for redemption against free food and drinks, has no plans to integrate its loyalty scheme with Apple Wallet right away.

John Fisher, Costa’s head of mobile and loyalty, told Macworld that while the company believed Apple Pay would make our in-store experience "even more seamless," Costa already had its own mobile loyalty app, launched last year, that customers can scan at the till.

"There is probably a role for mobile payments to be integrated into that in the future and we’re looking at that," Fisher said. "The product that Apple has will really help to provide a simple solution around in-app payments and payments in store. That’s potentially where the market is going to head, so we need to have all options on the table."

Boots told us it was "just focusing on Apple Pay functionality in stores at the present time" when we asked if it had any plans to integrate Advantage Card with Wallet. Boots is a member of the Wallgreens Boots Alliance group, alongside Wallgreens in the US, which is going down the Wallet route with its on Balance Rewards card.