Trusted Reviews is supported by its audience. If you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a commission. Learn more.

iOS 8 Safari can input credit card details using camera

It’s been discovered that the new version of Safari in iOS 8 can use the iPhone’s or the iPad’s camera to scan in credit card details for payment services.

Following Apple’s WWDC keynote at the beginning of the week, numerous additional iOS 8 features have emerged. It’s pretty packed.

One of the latest to emerged comes via 9to5Mac, who have discovered a nifty new labour-saving tool within the latest Safari web browser. It allows users to scan in their credit card details rather than typing them in.

Now, when entering a credit card number into an online form, such as an Amazon purchase, you’ll be offered the choice to “Scan Credit Card.” Use your device’s camera to snap your card of choice, and Apple’s optical character recognition will automatically pull out the relevant information and put it into the correct fields. Clever.

It seems web developers won’t have to do anything to enable this feature – Safari detects when it’s needed and presents the option above the keypad.

It’s one of many new features added to Safari alone. Also new is the ability to request full desktop websites, a vastly improved tab view for iPad users, improved speed, greater synchronisation with OS X Safari, and more.

iOS 8 is available as a developer beta now, but will officially launch in the autumn around the time of Apple’s big iPhone 6 reveal.

Read More: The iOS 8 and OS X 10.10 features that Apple “borrowed”

Why trust our journalism?

Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.

Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.

author icon

Editorial independence

Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.

author icon

Professional conduct

We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.

Trusted Reviews Logo

Sign up to our newsletter

Get the best of Trusted Reviews delivered right to your inbox.

This is a test error message with some extra words