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Forgot your Starbucks Card, debit card or loose change while trying to pay for that morning double-tall, non-fat, no-whip two-pump mocha? No worries: Just whip out your iPhone or iPod touch to pay.

That’s right: In select cities, you now can use the new and totally free Starbucks Card Mobile app on your iPhone or iPod touch to pay for your morning coffee. Just present your iPhone which will display a two-dimensional virtual barcode for the barista to scan. You also can check balances, reload your coffee-card and see a history of all your recent caffeine-laden purchases.

Plus, a second iPhone app, myStarbucks, lets you find, map and remember the nearest Starbucks locations, remember your favorite drinks (or those of your friends when they send you out to buy them treats), research coffee blends, view food items, and more. 

According to press reports, Starbucks launched the two new applications based on customer feedback to its online forum, My Starbucks Idea (powered by SalesForce CRM’s Idea Community).

No stranger to Apple, Starbucks already enables iPhone and iPod Touch owners to purchase and download music playing in stores, using the mobile version of iTunes.

All in all, it looks like Starbucks is taking a lesson from banks and financial institutions, who for years have devised ways to increase “share of wallet,” or the percent of a customer’s total spending that a business captures in the products and services that it offers.

And no wonder:  Increasing the share of a customer’s wallet (or in this case, a coffee cup) that a company receives could be a cheaper, faster way of boosting revenue than trying to fight for added market share, especially in Starbucks’ case, where it actually has shuttered hundreds of stores.

As we’re seeing, free iPhone and iPod Touch apps are helping make that share of iPhone mobile wallet much more feasible.

(Full disclosure: the author of this blog has been known to use and enjoy Apple and Starbucks products, although this posting is not to be construed as an offer or inducement to buy, use or consume such products.]