Google rebrands payment app, again, rollouts started.
In the beginning there was Google Wallet, and the Google looked down upon its works and said “this is good, but let’s make another app entirely that should be covered by Wallet and call it Android Pay” and it was done.
Thus was Wallet’s touch to pay stripped and relegated to their competing app, and it was done. Terminals throughout the lands had happy little Androids plastered to their list of accepted payment methods and it was good. You required two apps to do what one app should.
Wallet languished, losing the physical card you could associate, and late in June of 2016 the cards disappeared, taking with them any hopes of impressing people by whipping out your white card.
Google Wallet was absorbed by Android Pay, and now with all the functionality and years of marketing to call it Android Pay and “Pay with Google” the Google has decided to rename it to Google Pay.
And it was ever thus.
Now, what makes this a newsworthy piece is not that Google can’t keep a name, it’s that they dropped the word “Android” when there didn’t appear to be any compelling reason.
Could we be seeing The Google positioning for a spot competing with Apple Pay in the iOS market? I’d assume Apple maintains a lockout until soundly sued, but that might be coming. Or I might just be so out of touch with Apple products it’s absurd (seriously, anyone want to send me some Apple devices that aren’t 5 years old let me know, I’d like to get up to speed).
It also appears that @GoogleWallet has become @GooglePay at some point recently and @androidpay is suspended, although who knows.
Some additional reading on XDA.
