Introducing the Wallet Hub

Launch the Wallet Hub by tapping its icon in the App list. The landing page for the Wallet Hub displays two lists (see Figure 25.1). On the left is a list of payment instruments and membership cards, and on the right is a list of deals. Think of the deals area as a folder containing coupons that you might have cut out of the newspaper, but now they are stored digitally.

FIGURE 25.1 The Wallet Hub’s landing page.

From the application bar you can pin deals to the start experience or share them with other people. Deals can be found in web searches, in place cards, they can be handed from one person to another, and they can be part of what your app offers.

The Wallet Hub relies on apps for its content and is lit up with data coming from those apps and associated services. A user can access the Wallet and see a summary of this information from a multitude of sources.

As a place where financial information is stored, the Wallet Hub is designed to be secure. The user can provide a pin to prevent unauthorized access, and the Windows Phone OS prevents apps from accessing the Wallet items of other apps. Wallet items are accessible only by the app that put them there.

For certain types of Wallet items, the Windows Phone OS displays a confirmation dialog before the OS places them into the Wallet. This gives ultimate control of what goes into the Wallet, to the user, giving the user peace of mind.

The Wallet Hub allows the user to drill down into Wallet items. When a user taps a payment instrument or membership card, the Wallet displays a detail page for the item. If you pan over to transactions, your app can employ a background agent to retrieve the transaction history for the item. You see how to achieve this later in the chapter.

By adding Wallet functionality to your app, you can increase the reach of your app. Items can be added to the Wallet with your branded logo, making the brand visible from within the Wallet. In addition, deep-linking from the Wallet back to your app offers users an additional entry point to your app.

Apps that handle club memberships, loyalty cards, banking and financial transactions, and coupons are great candidates for Wallet integration. You can, however, think of other novel scenarios for integrating your app into the Wallet.