Google's New Take on Mobile Payments Puts Focus on Developers With Android Pay
At Mobile World Congress today Senior Vice President of Google Sundar Pichai revealed a handful of new projects the company is working on, including a new mobile payments solution called Android Pay (via The Verge).
Though only spoken of briefly, Pichai mentioned that the new service would take a decidedly more developer-focused route, calling Android Pay a "developer tool" that would give those developers considerable flexibility in how to implement the payments service.
He noted that the service was less a new consumer-level product and more of an "API layer" that will give other developers and companies the chance to build interesting mobile payment solutions on Android platforms.
"We are doing it in a way in which anybody else can build a payments service on top of Android," said Pichai. "So, in places like China and Africa we hope that people will use Android Pay to build innovative services."
Although Pichai did not explain the details of Android Pay to any great degree, he claimed it would "start with NFC" and eventually accommodate biometric sensors as well.
Google's news follows on the heels of Samsung's own entry into the contactless payment market with Samsung Pay just yesterday. Samsung's offering is set to be baked in to the upcoming Summer release of the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge smartphones, which will include a fingerprint scanner to help secure mobile payments made on the device, falling far more in line as a direct competitor to Apple Pay than Google's new service.
Samsung is attempting to come out of the gate strong, with the company having already made deals with MasterCard and Visa to support the service and attempting to line up various other companies and banks before the new Galaxy phone launches this summer. The announcement appears to be a direct continuation of Samsung's acquisition of mobile payments-focused company LoopPay earlier in February, setting itself up to battle Apple Pay in the coming months.
Pichai noted during MWC that Android Pay is a bit more malleable of a service, not locking itself onto one specific phone or brand similar to Apple Pay or the upcoming Samsung Pay. He continued that the company doesn't mean to directly compete with Samsung's newly announced mobile payments service, and mentioned that Google wanted to "work closely [together] to see how we can align [with them]."
Popular Stories
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices.
Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025:
Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
Apple is expected to release iOS 18.4 to the general public as soon as next week, following more than a month of beta testing.
Apple's website says some iOS 18.4 features will be released in "early April," so the update should be out as early as Tuesday, April 1.
Apple this week seeded the iOS 18.4 Release Candidate, which is typically the final beta version, barring the discovery of any...
Leaker Jon Prosser today shared a mockup of what he says the Messages app will look like in iOS 19, demoing an interface with rounded, translucent bubble-shaped navigation buttons at the top and softer, rounder corners for the keyboard and word suggestions.
Jon Prosser's Messages app mockup
The return button, a button for going back to the Messages list, and the FaceTime button have a deeper...
If you pay for iCloud storage on your iPhone, Apple has a new perk for you, at no additional cost.
The new perk is the ability to create invitations in the Apple Invites app for the iPhone, which launched in the App Store last month.
In the Apple Invites app, iCloud+ subscribers can create invitations for any occasion, such as birthday parties, graduations, baby showers, and more. Anyone ...
Apple today announced that AirPods Max with a USB-C port will be gaining support for lossless audio and ultra-low latency audio with a firmware update next month, alongside the release of iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, and macOS 15.4.
For context, audio files are typically compressed to keep file sizes smaller. There are lossy compression standards like MP3 and AAC (Advanced Audio Codec), which...
Apple regularly refreshes the MacBook Pro models, and a new version that uses M5 series chips is in the works. Apple just finished refreshing most of the Mac lineup with M4 chips, and now it's time for the M5. Rumors suggest that we could see the first M5 MacBook Pro models this fall.
Design
There have been no rumors of a design update for the M5 MacBook Pro models that are coming this...
Apple is going all out with promotions for the popular Severance Apple TV+ show today, and as of right now, you'll find a new "Lumon Terminal Pro" listed on Apple's Mac site.
The Lumon Terminal Pro is designed to look similar to the machines that Severance employees like Mark S. and Helly R. use for macrodata refinement. The Terminal features a blue keyboard, a small display with wide...
The iOS 19 mockup images that leaker Jon Prosser shared today are not representative of the actual iOS 19 design, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said on social media.
According to Gurman, the images that are "floating around" are based on "very old builds" or "vague descriptions," and are lacking key features. Gurman says that we can "expect more from Apple in June."
Gurman made the same comment ...