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Safari in iOS 8 uses camera to scan and enter credit card info

In iOS 8, Apple has a new feature in Safari that allows users to scan a credit card with the device’s camera rather than manually entering the number when making a purchase online.

When entering a credit card number into a form online to, for example, make a purchase, Safari already allowed users to quickly select credit cards stored in its Passwords & AutoFill settings. You can still do that, but in iOS 8 you’ll now also have the option to select “Scan Credit Card” and snap a picture of the card. Apple then uses optical character recognition of sorts to input the number into the text field in Safari. There’s also a way to scan and save cards using the camera directly from within the Passwords & AutoFill settings.

Website developers don’t have to do anything to enable the feature, as Safari appears to automatically detect when a credit card number is being requested and presents the option to scan above the keypad.

Safari received some other updates announced this week at WWDC too, including a redesign in OS X Yosemite on the Mac, and highly requested features on iOS like the ability to request a desktop site and a tab view for iPad.

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Comments

  1. if it works like the iTunes gift card camera recognition, this is awesome. its super fast.

  2. adeelakhtar2014 - 10 years ago

    nice

  3. andreww500 - 10 years ago

    Loving iOS8. There are already an abundance of new features and we aren’t even close to the GM release. Will be interesting to see what new features the iPhone 6 brings to iOS, too.

  4. clarkberryman - 10 years ago

    I’m sorry, but unless I see your credit card in front of the camera, and iOS recognizing the card, I can’t believe that this is actually taking place. For all we know, Mark Gurman just commissioned some clever mockups of the supposed feature.

  5. Jesse Supaman Nichols - 10 years ago

    I actually noticed this on day one and thought it was an old feature (I think I was thinking about the gift card thing). It just so happened that I got a new card in (the old one expired) and had to switch the info on my iTunes account. It really easy to use. =)

  6. iPadCary - 10 years ago

    Pretty sweet, I must say.
    Looking forward to installing 8.

  7. Lun Esex (@LunaticSX) - 10 years ago

    I’m looking forward to when we get WordLens-style automatic OCR in the camera that can detect URLs and make them tappable. (QR codes: Here’s the final nail for your coffin.)

    • admin - 10 years ago

      The point of a QR code is to be error-tolerant; it can be scanned with a relatively low-quality scanner or camera module, and you still effectively have a guarantee that the scan will come out valid and un-corrupted.

      That’s not the case with a URL (nor will it ever be) – your camera needs to have a particular resolution, lens quality, stabilisation mechanisms, etc. to even *begin* thinking about OCRing out URLs. It’s also not even close to the feature described in the article – creditcard numbers have checksum digits (with a similar purpose to error correction in QR codes, albeit more human-error-focused), whereas URLs do not.

      Added complexity comes from the fact that a single mis-OCR of a character in a URL will render the entire URL effectively unusable. WordLens does not have this problem – it can ‘guess’ the correct word, autocorrect-style.

      If OCRing URLs is ever going to be a reality, it’s quite far away. You won’t see it being relied upon until high-resolution high-quality stabilized camera modules are a given, even in lower-end hardware.

  8. chrlun - 10 years ago

    This is what card.io have done for some time now. Is it the same solution?

  9. AwayBBL (@awaybbl) - 10 years ago

    Apple has had “data detectors” for a long long time. As a developer I’d like to see them allow developers to be able to extend the types of data that can be detected by the OS. As an example, I have a scanning app that I’d like to be able to use to auto-detect ISBN numbers when scanned. Apple’s data detectors only currently recognize URL’s, Phone Numbers, Map Addresses, and Dates. Maybe iOS 8 will finally allow developers to bind their own data formats and default actions?

  10. Elizabeth Roberts - 10 years ago

    looking forward for this one!

  11. will this work on multiple text fields on same page

Author

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jordan Kahn

Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac, & contributes to 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, & Electrek.co. He also co-authors 9to5Mac’s Logic Pros series.