In its earnings call, where Apple CEO Tim Cook talked about speculation and future product launches, he also spoke about the iOS 6. Cook said Passbook, the app storing all of a user's cards in a single place, is the first step towards a digital wallet.

"Passbook is a very key feature in iOS 6. I think all of us have found that we were getting many passes and many tickets, maybe boarding passes, that were getting scattered all over our iPhones in different apps. And so Passbook does an incredible job of pulling all of those to one place," Cook said. iOS 6 lead Scott Forstall had previewed the app at WWDC in June.

Passbook allows users to scan an iPhone, to check for a "flight, get into a movie, or redeem a coupon" according to Apple's product page on the app. Passes appear on the lockscreen for the iPhone and iPod Touch when relevant, presumably tracking the location. It also adapts to changing information, similar to Google Now, for example by updating the terminal gate for a flight. Google Now offers information in real-time and gathers information as the app is used, whereas Passbook is just an app.

Passbook is also seen as the service to provide quick access to cards and if a device is lost, can be refunded.

"Clearly, this is the first step of Apple providing a digital wallet," Forrester Research analyst Charles Govin said. Google offers Google Wallet, an NFC-enabled service allowing users to make purchases by tapping the phone. It hasn't been super popular with consumers, though, and Apple typically adopts technology when it sees a long-term value (HTML5, for example, or Thunderbolt).

However, Apple is a different beast and has a knack for taking niche technology mainstream. The iPad is the perfect example - a form factor Microsoft has been building, but people didn't buy. Gaming is arguably the biggest example on iOS, if unintentional on Apple's part, and the company has 400 million users with registered credit cards on iTunes.

iOS 6 launches this fall. Apple is expected to unveil more UI features in iOS 6, around the launch of the iPhone 5.