Apple customers visiting the Apple Store will soon be able to pay for the purchases in-store using the latest Passbook feature of iOS 6.

Apple's highly-touted Passbook app allows users to store coupons, boarding passes, and other forms of mobile payment on portable devices running on iOS 6. Apple announced that the passbook app will be integrated in the iOS 6 at the 2012 Worldwide Developers' Conference on June 11 this year. The Passbook app was released with iOS 6 on Sept. 19.

Rumors indicate that the Passbook app will supposedly support mobile payment system at Apple's retail stores.

"While Apple's EasyPay software should be ready for Passbook this month, some sources noted that the current EasyPay hardware, at least at some retail stores, may not be capable of scanning iOS device displays. Presumably, Apple has a solution for this in the works," reports 9to5Mac.

9to5Mac further added "Also, Apple's plans for rolling out the consumer-facing Apple Store app update to support Passbook-based Apple Store cards is currently unclear. But with Apple preparing to seed software to its stores that interacts with Passbook on customer iPhones and iPod touches, we believe that the feature is close to being a rolled out."

Currently, Apple allows customers to purchase certain items like accessories using their iTunes accounts through the Apple Store iOS app's EasyPay feature. It is likely that customers may get the option to pay for bigger purchases like Macs and iPads in Apple Store with their iTunes account payment information.

Many businesses have already got support for Passbook like Live Nation, Lufthansa, American Airlines, Ticketmaster, Starbucks, et al and, therefore, Apple using the Passbook app in its own store should not come as a surprise.

iPhone 5, packs in iOS 6, has already seen high sales since its release on Sept. 21. Owners of older iPhones and iPads have also started to get the latest update on their devices. With the increased use in iDevices, the use of Passbook is also expected to grow in the near future.

It is anybody's guess if Passbook will be able exceed cash and credit/debit card as a payment mode in the long term.