Starbucks iPhone App Could Have Glitch ... or Benefit, Depending

Can you trust the people around whom you leave your iPhone? If the answer is "yes," than you can consider the following news a bonus; the Starbucks Mobile Card app can be used on your Android phone. If not, your unscrupulous friends, co-workers, babysitters, or children can make off with a screengrab of your Starbucks card's unique bar code and, if you have enormous quantities of cash on your card as I do ($6.30!), spend it recklessly.

I'm rather less than shocked and awed by this news; my children, babysitters, and unscrupulous friends could also steal cash out of my wallet if I were to leave it (rather less valuable, most days, than my iPod touch) within their grasp while I went off to the restroom, or to chase an errant 3-year-old, or to chat with another friend. As I trust them with my cash, I also trust them not to press the "pay now" button on one of my cards, take a screen grab of the resultant image, and email it to themselves. It's a complicated way of stealing money from me, and there are lots easier ways of getting me to pay for their coffee. "Please could I get you to buy me a coffee?" is one of them. (Try the new ristretto bianco. It's very good!)