Apple has recently announced its first step to get into the PropTech market. It enables iPhone users to save their plastic office badges directly into the digital Wallet through the iOS 15 update.

It’s an important milestone for access control because tech giants like Apple have the potential to extend mobile access to the majority of the market.

A summary of the Apple keynote presented at the WWDC21 developers conference: “We set out to replace your physical wallet,” said Jennifer Bailey, VP and Apple Pay at Apple. She continued: “With iOS 15, we’re bringing keys for your everyday places to Wallet. Just add your corporate badge and tap to enter your building or office.” (The whole keynote is available here.)

The iOS 15 new features — an operating software update is expected to be released worldwide in September — will definitely help accelerate the adoption of new trends. We saw it with Apple Pay — launched in 2014, used by 500 million iPhone users in 2020. Apple follows the same philosophy as we in Sharry believe in the mobile-only future of building access management.

Apple pledges to “create a faster and safer experience.” We aim at the same goal at Sharry, even though we offer a slightly different approach:

• “Just add your corporate badge and tap to enter your building or office,” announced Apple. — — With Sharry, there’s no need to open the app and tap on the screen with every access. Our app runs in the background. Just get the phone near the turnstiles or door readers to breeze through.
• Apple promises to replace your physical badge in the iPhone. — — We build a wide card management tool and analytics platform over it for property and asset managers. And our mobile access solution is also a key element for the whole tenant engagement platform.
• “You’ll automatically receive your room key even before you arrive at the hotel,” presents Jennifer Bailey, VP and Apple Pay at Apple, during the WWDC 2021 Keynote. — — The same experience is already available in our solution. Mobile access cards could be distributed remotely — even before the newly hired employee comes for their first working day.
• The solution presented by Apple will be available for “supported corporate offices’’. Our product is ready now for every commercial property from New York City to Adelaide.
• And yes, all Android users are welcomed and equal in our ecosystem.

There are still some unresolved issues when you look deeply into tech specifications of the upcoming software update: “Car keys and home keys are available on iPhone XS and later. Device requirements may vary by hotel and workplace.”

Michal Miko, iOS developer at Sharry comes with a specific use case for badges stored in the digital Wallet: “I can imagine that the turnstiles in the lobby will require a FaceID verification using a digital Wallet, but to enter the tenants’ space upstairs, an application with mobile access card running only in the background will suffice.”