Apple Watch Experience with boarding passes

I recently had a chance to test the Apple Watch experience using the watch boarding pass. Overall, the experience is good, but not great. Let me explain. When using passbook on the phone, one can simply slide the app on the lock screen and place the boarding pass on a reader. Because the entire pass including the QR code is visible, there is no need to scroll down or do much of anything else. Just place the pass on the TSA or gate reader and that’s it. This can be done using just one hand keeping the other hand free to deal with the luggage. (Others may have a different use case, of course.)

The Apple watch experience is a little different. It’s simple ergonomics. The watch is obviously residing on one hand while the other hand operates it. The screen is lot smaller and navigating to the QR code that is ultimately scanned by the reader takes more steps than on the phone. This actually creates an uncomfortable delay, considering that there is probably a line of people holding a paper pass behind you who can scan that boarding pass lot faster. One potential way to preempt that is to open the pass and have it ready on the watch before approaching the reader. Unfortunately the watch is not all that helpful here. At the time of writing, the QR code will stay on the screen for only about two minutes. After that the code disappears and the user has to fumble to find it again.

Overall, the watch passbook app is a good idea, but unfortunately Apple has not managed to make this a magical experience. I would be curious if the next watchOS makes this process easier.