Gift cards and their balances, in one place

Take a photo of the card and Beep reads the number, the store and the PIN. A PIN the card labels as one (PIN, pincode, CVC, activation code) is filled in. On iOS 27, with Apple Intelligence turned on, Apple's on-device model also reads the photo and can find a PIN with no label, such as the number under a scratch panel — but Beep only takes it if that number is printed on the card on a line of its own and isn't part of the card number. Without Apple Intelligence, unlabelled numbers that could be the PIN are shown for you to tap, because a wrong PIN looks fine until it fails at the till. Either way the photo is read on your iPhone, not on a server.

On the card screen the PIN sits directly under the barcode, the two things a cashier asks for in one go.

Enter what the card was worth when you got it. After each purchase, log the amount you spent — by typing it or with the slider on the balance bar, which asks you to confirm before anything is written. The balance and the bar move, and the history under the card keeps every entry with its date and an optional note.

Topped the card up? Log the top-up and the balance goes up; a top-up past the original amount raises the bar's full mark with it. Logged a spend by mistake? Delete the entry from the history and the money returns to the balance. The balance can't go below zero.

The Gift card tab adds up what's left on all your gift cards, so you see at a glance how much you have to spend. Cards that are empty or past their date are left out, and each currency is added up on its own.

Give a gift card its expiry date when you add it — the add screen has an Expires switch — or later on the card's own screen, in the row under the balance. Beep then reminds you 30 days and 7 days before, in the morning, with the balance in the notification; set a date less than a week away and you get one reminder on the last day instead. Tap it and the card opens. A card you've logged down to zero isn't reminded about. On the card's details the date turns orange in the last thirty days and red once it has passed.

Beep asks for permission to send notifications only when you first save a card with an expiry date, never when you open the app. The reminders are scheduled on your iPhone and delivered by iOS, so nothing about the card is sent anywhere, and you can turn them off under Expiry reminders in Settings.

Beep never contacts the retailer. The balance is what you've told it, nothing more: it isn't checked against the store's system, so if someone else uses the same card the figure in Beep won't know. For the official balance, use the retailer's own balance check.

The photo you added a card with is saved with it automatically. Add more — the back with the terms, the receipt it came with, the scratch panel — and they're there when a shop asks about the conditions. Photos sync with the card and are deleted with it.

Add a gift card to Apple Wallet in one tap and the pass carries the logo, the balance and the PIN on its back. The pass shows the balance as it was when you added it; Beep is where you keep it up to date, and after you log a spend it tells you the pass in Wallet still shows the earlier version — add it again to update it. Everything stays on your devices and in your own iCloud — there is no account and no server that holds your cards.