I often find myself in the same predicament whenever I’m out shopping, and it’s time to pay. Point-of-sale systems aren’t always clear about whether they accept contactless payments, so sometimes I ask before I tap. “You can use Apple Pay,” the clerk will say. It is then that I have to decide whether to correct the clerk by explaining how the experience differs, or to pull out my Pixel device, tap the Google Wallet app, and then move on with my day.
I usually say nothing. First, because it would make me seem pedantic and nitpicky, and second, because I’ve long accepted that Apple has been much better at marketing digital payments from the get-go, even though the company launched Apple Pay years after the technology appeared on Android. Those of us on the Android side have had a less-than-stellar start to this whole thing, including several rounds of rebranding and an attempt to keep the “wallet” part disparate from the “pay” part.
Fortunately, Google has refocused its efforts on making Wallet an all-inclusive utility rather than a clumsy dumping ground for everything NFC. It recently added live flight tracking and has started slowly rolling out a major overhaul of Google Wallet. The app finally feels like a proactive companion rather than a catch-all for your digital payment tools.
Google Wallet’s Rocky History
To understand why this redesign is such a major relief, and why I think about how well Apple has marketed Apple Pay thus far, you have to remember the identity crisis Google’s contactless payments efforts have endured over the past decade and a half. The original Google Wallet (2011) was an absolute breakthrough, bringing NFC payments to the Android platform before retailers even subscribed to it. Apple didn’t release Apple Pay until 2014, three years later.
But then Google split Android Pay and Google Wallet into separate entities. Google Wallet was intended for sending digital payments to friends and colleagues. It worked like Venmo, letting you send a couple of bucks to another Android or Google user to pay for your share of the dinner bill. Android Pay remained a separate app if you wanted to use any virtual payment cards.
In 2018, Google merged them and rebranded the combined app as Google Pay, or GPay. It briefly felt like the confusion was over until 2020, when we had GPay—with the ability to pay friends and track rewards—coupled with a separate Google Pay app for mobile payments. There were two Google Pay apps on Android devices. Were it not for the lockdown that kept us all from going out and spending money, it would have been way more annoying than it was.
By 2022, Google Wallet finally became the de facto contactless payment app for all Android users, allowing us to breathe a sigh of relief. Google officially retired GPay two years ago, while the Google Pay moniker continues to stick around, though it now refers to Google’s online digital payment platform.
Live Flight Updates Are Just the Beginning
The flight-tracking feature that Google recently added to Wallet is one of the most promising upgrades in years, despite it being rather minimal. It’s not flight-tracking itself that sets the app on fire, but it shows us where Google’s heading.
Google Wallet has long been able to display boarding passes and mileage program cards, but if you are running to catch a flight, you have to open another window to check the status. Most of the time, I use the airline’s app to get my digital boarding pass because switching between apps at the gate is clunky. On Android 16, Google Wallet fixes this issue by enabling Live Update notifications. It shows live-tracking in an Apple Dynamic Island-type way with a progress bar on both the lock screen and always-on display, even if you lock your phone or move through other apps and windows. It’s glanceable convenience.
Google Wallet’s previous design relied heavily on the infinite scroll. (Florence Ion)
Google is now slowly rolling out a major redesign of the Google Wallet app that will massively improve the user experience. I don’t have it on my Pixel 10 Pro yet (I tried to force the update, but no luck).
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Android Authority and 9to5Google have deep dives into the interface and what’s changed. The most significant modifications are the search bar—an element that had been glaringly missing from the search engine’s own wallet app—and a new two-column design consolidation. Rather than one long scroll to look through all your registered cards, you can manually search for what you need. Cards are organized by how often you use them and by type. You can pin your favorite cards so they’re prioritized when you tap into the Wallet app. I especially like this for my transit card. I’ve been defaulting to debit when tapping in and out, which means I’m missing out on pre-tax benefits. I can change this moving forward.
At Last, a Unified Wallet for Android
At the very least, we can be thankful that Google Wallet continues to adapt and add the latest features—despite changing names, splitting in two, and merging together again. The prominent push these past few years has been toward storing digital identification, such as your passport and driver’s license. That groundwork essentially laid the foundation for upcoming features like the Age Verification API, which will soon let you prove your age to an app or website by logging in with Wallet.
Wallet is bound to get even more powerful as Aliro 1.0 rolls out, an emerging digital key standard that lets you walk through locked doors via contactless identification as you approach.
Until then, I’m resigned to dealing with clerks who call it Apple Pay, but at least Google Wallet can do what everyone with an iPhone can.
About Our Expert
Florence Ion
Senior Writer, Mobile
Experience
I am PCMag’s Senior Writer for Mobile. I write about Android, iOS, and the myriad intricacies in between. I’ve been covering these worlds for more than 15 years. Before joining PCMag, I was a staff reporter for Gizmodo, PCWorld, and Ars Technica.
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