Apple delays the ability to store ID cards in Apple Wallet to early 2022

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As spotted by MacRumors, Apple has again delayed its upcoming feature that will allow users in the U.S. to store ID cards and driver’s licenses within the Apple Wallet app. The feature was announced with iOS 15 at WWDC this summer and was originally promised to be released in late 2021. Now, according to Apple’s website, the feature will launch in early 2022.

Announced by Apple Pay VP Jennifer Bailey at WWDC21, the feature will make it possible for you to carry your ID card on your iPhone or Apple Watch and therefore be “fully free of your physical wallet.” Apple is also said to be working with TSA checkpoints at airports in the U.S. to enable them as the first places you can use your digital ID. In September, a press release stated that the first U.S. states to use the feature would be Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Oklahoma, and Utah. Now, it seems, the feature will not launch anywhere until at least early next year.

The delay is not very surprising, considering iOS 15.2 is currently in beta and does not enable the feature. With iOS 15.2 likely to launch around the end of the year, it only makes sense that this feature will have to wait until the next iOS update in the new year.

Also, as we saw with Apple’s rollout of its COVID-19 Exposure Notification system, features take longer to roll out when Apple is working with individual state governments within the U.S. rather than the country as a whole.

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Published to Apple Scoop on 23rd November, 2021.