Coffee drinkers will have at least a few more hours before they can start tipping their Starbucks barista from their iPhone.
Seattle’s mega coffee chain promised the new app would go live in iTunes on Wednesday, but more than 24 hours later, the release has yet to arrive.
Update: At around 10:45 a.m., some people started noticing that the update was available for download. Check for it here.
Earlier this morning, 9to5mac.com reported that Starbucks was one of the more prominent companies being affected by an iTunes bug that prevents developers from launching a new app and deploying a software update deployment to Apple’s App Store.
For Starbucks, the issue created somewhat of a customer service nightmare on Twitter, where dozens of customers are asking why the new app hasn’t been released yet.
Isn’t the anticipation killing you? Yeah, us too. Expect to see this in the App Store soon.
— Starbucks Coffee (@Starbucks) March 20, 2014
@Starbucks why isn’t it out, I thought I was to be released on the 19th?
— Trevv (@TrevinGibson) March 20, 2014
A Starbucks spokeswoman confirmed that the delay is due to a problem with the iTunes delivery system, and said they are hopeful it will come out later today.
While the hiccup may sound trivial, it affects a lot of customers. At Starbucks annual shareholder meeting yesterday, it said that more than 14 percent of all Starbucks transactions in U.S. stores are now made with a mobile device and that there were five million mobile payments made in stores just last week alone.
Tipping has been a major request since transactions made from the phone didn’t allow customers to leave anything extra for the barista (although, for some customers, that may have been considered a nice bonus).
Other new updates in the app include shake to pay, which allows you to get back to the scan page immediately no matter where else you are in the app; and easier access to account information, so you can stay up to date on your rewards.
