Apple working on iPhone, iPad app to revolutionize travel

PanARMENIAN.Net - Apple is working on an iPhone and iPad app that could revolutionize travel, especially for business travellers and other frequent flyers.

Codenamed iTravel, the app may do for the travel industry what Apple’s iTunes Store did for the music industry – and seek to enthrone the iPhone and iPad as the traveller's tech of choice. A key feature of iTravel is to enable paperless ticketing and wireless check-in systems similar to Qantas’ recently-launched Next-Generation Check-in.

Those and other RFID features would rely on short-range Near Field Communications (NFC) technology being built into the device, which means we might not see iTravel arrive until the release of an NFC-enabled iPhone 5 or iPad 3, Australian Business Traveller reported.

While Apple has not publicly discussed iTravel, a series of submissions the company had filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office began to appear in April 2010, with subsequent updates as Apple expanded on the app's capabilities and filed new patent applications Mock-up iTravel screens included with the patent documents also show the app could be used to make bookings for flights, hotels, car rentals and even trains and buses (and help track and claim reward points along the way).

It's not unusual for Apple products to have long gestation periods, especially when they would rely extensively on integration with the non-Apple world of hotels, airlines, booking agencies and other service providers.