Starbucks officially launches iPhone payment feature

Starbucks will officially launch its iPhone-based mobile payment service today in all of its U.S. company-operated stores, allowing users of its Starbucks Card Mobile app to pay for their coffee and other Starbucks products directly from their iOS device. The Starbucks Card Mobile app was originally released in the fall of 2009 to allow iPhone users to manage their Starbucks Cards, tracking rewards and balances and reloading their cards. At that time a pilot program was put in place to test mobile payments at select locations in California, Seattle and New York City whereby users could pay simply by displaying a barcode on their iOS device that could be read by the scanner at the register. Starbucks today announced that it is rolling out the mobile payments platform throughout the U.S. allowing iOS devices to be used as virtual Starbucks Cards for payment and rewards. The Starbucks Card Mobile app is available from the App Store as a free download. [via Mashable]