Temple University partners with Apple to put student IDs on iWatch, iPhone

Apple fans from Philly must have felt a jolt seeing the Temple University logo on the big screen at the Cupertino company’s annual keynote.

On Monday, at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference 2018, Temple was one of six universities announced as early adopters of an upcoming feature of its watchOS 5 operating system, one that lets Apple Watches replace the conventional student ID card to access buildings and pay for items.

“You’re going to have the ability to add your student id card to Wallet on your iPhone and Apple Watch,” said Kevin Lynch, vice president of technology at Apple. “This works by simply holding your watch near a reader anywhere you can use student ID cards on and off campus. It will be available this fall starting with these universities and we’ll expand to more campuses over time.”

Sooooo… @TempleUniv is on the list of 6 universities that will be getting Student ID cards in Apple Wallet this fall! You’ll be able to tap into food courts, buildings, dorms, etc with an Apple Watch. #WWDC18 (cc @TechnicallyPHL) pic.twitter.com/s7YXjVs0wZ

— melody ✨ 🔜 fanime 1201 (@stargazermellu) June 4, 2018

“Temple University is very excited to be one of a handful of schools engaged with Apple to bring this new capability,” the university said through a spokesperson. “Having the TUid available in Wallet on iPhone and Apple Watch provides students a higher level of convenience for everything from securely entering buildings to paying for a meal. We look forward to bringing this to students near the end of this calendar year.”

Developer Victor Lourng, a former Temple student, gave the feature the thumbs up:

“If there was one thing that would convince me to buy an Apple Watch (once I have $), it would be exactly this,” Lourng said in a tweet. “It‘s certainly better than having to carry around my card on a lanyard all day! Given that most of my classmates have iPhones, they’ll too find Wallet integration useful.”

Watch Lynch announce the feature live on stage: