Starbucks adds mobile payment option for iPhone, Blackberry

If you’d like to pay for your 31-ounce bucket-o-Joe but avoid touching bits of currency that once resided in a stripper’s g-string, you’re in luck if you’ve got an iPhone or certain kinds of Blackberry. (Not so fast, Droid users.)

Starbucks is adding a mobile payment option that works with some smartphones, available at 7,500 Starbucks locations- a figure roughly encompassing the number of Starbucks stores in the vicinity of Penn Station- as well as Starbucks in Targets. (Heretofore to be referred to as “Tarbucks.”) You need to have a Starbucks card to use the service, and it’s not clear from the description on the Starbucks site whether the card’s number needs to be manually entered every time you use the app to pay for a drink at Starbucks. The phone will then spit out a barcode, which you can use to pay for the drink. (Actually, this is not sounding loads more convenient than using a debit or credit card.)

According to the company, one in five customers currently uses a Starbucks card to pay for the $5 coffees, and if anything, the card is probably a good way to manage your Starbucks budget. Do you plan on testing out the new mobile payment system at Starbucks?