Changing Mobility Baselines: The iWallet

The wallet is one of a number of core mobility baselines. How important is it to travel? Anyone who has lost or forgotten theirs will know that not having one makes access to all transport except walking and cycling impossible. Transport planning generally assumes that this base level barely shifts. But in fact, wallets have been following their own trends in relation to social needs.

Who invented the wallet? Wallets, or money purses, have been around since the invention of coinage. Take, for example, this stunning 6th or 7th century Anglo-Saxon purse from the Sutton Hoo burial: Frank N Minetti of Cincinnati, Ohio is certainly a contender for the invention of the modern wallet. In 1928 he filed a patent for a 'pocket wallet' US Patent 1699,064 8 May 1928:

"The objects of my invention are to provide an efficient, practical and highly desirable and serviceable Pocket Wallet capable of receiving various articles such as bank 10 notes, a bank book, a check book, personal and business cards, stamps, small change etc."

Minetti had invented the swiss-army knife of purses, sporting compartments for all imaginable social practices:

"Not infrequently considerable embarrassment is caused an individual who unintentionally issues a bank check when having insufficient funds in the bank to guarantee payment of the amount of money specified on the check and so which embarrassment may be avoided by the proper application and use of my invention".

Modern expressions of the mobility baseline are much more novel. take, for instance, the bacon, toast, and cassette wallet Oddee 24 March 2009. Many who hate carrying a large wallet can opt for the Jimi or even the recycled bicycle spoke clip.

Now Apple are aiming to co-opt the wallet with projections of their iPhone 5. If all goes to plan the iWallet will replace all of the functions of the contemporary wallet. To do this Apple would need to make the contents obsolete. Computerworld 4 May 2010 The success of the iWallet would hinge on secure near-field technology that would allow a transaction to be made through the phone as a paperless, and crucially, cardless payment. It would effectively render not only cards but ATMs and (in the long run) paper and metal coinage redundant. A tall order indeed! While many of the compartments that Frank Minetti imagined for his patent have been rendered obsolete (bank cheques, bank books, cheque books) others remain stubbornly current, even though alternatives are available (stamps, business cards). The iPhone-as-payment-system would obviously be a paradigm shift for the wallet as well as for commerce and for transport.