Could Google Wallet be broken on purpose on the HTC EVO 4G LTE?
All right, folks: it’s time to put on your tin foil hats. As we all know, Google Wallet is broken in a very bad way on the HTC EVO 4G LTE, and even unofficial fixes don’t seem to be working for everyone. And as we just found out, Sprint just so happens to be working on its own NFC-based mobile payment solution, which would be in direct competition with Google Wallet.
As we know, Google Wallet hasn’t really taken off the way Google had hoped it would. So far, you can only add one credit card (a Citi Mastercard), forcing you to go through Google’s prepaid card if you want to use any other card. Also, Sprint is the only national carrier on board with Google Wallet – until now, it seems.
Apparently, Sprint is planning to release a new service called Touch Wallet, that will work in exactly the same way that Google Wallet does. There’s still no word on what banks will partner with Sprint, and what retailers will be on board when this launches, but Google has suddenly found itself very much alone in the world of mobile payments.
So is it possible that Google found out about Sprint’s own foray into mobile NFC payments, and decided to take away one of the EVO 4G LTE’s coolest features? Could this explain why Google Wallet still works on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus – Google’s own flagship phone – but not on the EVO 4G LTE, which is Sprint’s current flagship phone? Could this also explain why Google has yet to release some kind of official statement about the outage, or at least give users some kind of ETA on a fix?
Or is this really just a horrible, badly-timed mistake that Google is still trying to fix?
To be clear, I don’t necessarily believe that there’s some kind of Google conspiracy going on here. But I think we can all agree that this is all really bad timing. And I really want my free $10 prepaid card so I can head to McDonald’s and pick up a free smoothie.
What do you think?
[Android Central]
