Oh, how great it is to live in the future. Sure, we may never explore the galaxy in our personal space cruisers (single tear.), but we can buy our friends coffee without even being at a coffee shop. From our phones!
I’m getting ahead of myself. Up until this point, Starbucks has had two applications for iOS: myStarbucks, and Starbucks Card Mobile. The first let you find nearby stores, explore Starbuck’s menu, view store hours, etc — all the basics. The second, however, was pretty neat: you went to a Starbucks store, bought a gift card, punched that card’s details into your phone, and bam: the Starbucks Card Mobile appbecame the gift card, showing a scannable code that the cute girl behind the counter could scan whenever it came time to pay up.
Today, they’re merging the two apps into one, with the aptly titled “Starbucks for iPhone“. It brings all of the features from both apps into one, with one new cool trick thrown into the mix: mobile gifting. With just a click or two, you can send any of your contacts or Facebook friends an eGift card, which they can in turn use from their iPhone or at starbucksstore.com.
The best part about all of this: next time someone you’ve just met says “Let me buy you coffee some time!”, you can respond by saying “Okay, go ahead!”, and staring at them awkwardly until the eGift alert arrives.