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After a few months of testing, Google’s plans for using Android to power purchases are finally coming to fruition. Google Wallet is now available to Samsung Nexus S owners on Sprint, enabling tap-and-go payments through PayPass sensors at Radio Shack, Foot Locker, Peet’s Coffee & Tea, Sunoco, CVS/pharamacy, and a bunch of other retail locations. American Eagle Outfitters, Jamba Juice, OfficeMax, and Toys R Us will also let you keep track of loyalty cards and point accumulations through Google Wallet. Citi and MasterCard helped testing during the pre-launch period, and now that the app is live, Visa, Discover, and American Express are also supported.
Google Wallet relies on a piece of hardware called a near-field communications chip. It’s a short-range radio that initiates data transfer when it gets close to another sensor. Though that might sound sketchy from a security perspective, PIN numbers are added to Google Wallet to ensure all transactions are legit. Contactless payment is the main use case for NFC, but access control is a close second. RIM’s starting to push NFC hard with the Bold 9900 and Curve 9360 both sporting the feature, and recently gaining accreditation with a big player in the digital key space. In fact, RIM had their own Wallet app for awhile – it’s just too bad that they never got close to realizing the vision nearly as well as Google will. Ticketing is a related niche that could be impacted by NFC. We’ve seen plenty of airlines adopt QR codes, and with that back-end infrastructure in place, it’s only a matter of adding (or swapping out) the point-of-entry sensors to move to NFC. On that note, NFC could very well succeed where a decade of QR codes has failed to gain mainstream traction.
Currently, Google Wallet is being pushed out through a software update to Sprint Samsung Nexus S owners. Here’s hoping it’ll be available elsewhere in the U.S. and worldwide soon, and even then, adoption will rely on Android manufacturers taking the leap and including NFC on their smartphones.
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About The Author
Simon Sage
Simon Sage’s education largely surrounded writing, technology and online community, leading him to begin his blogging career at www.BlackBerryCool.com and to quickly discover a vibrant and active community surrounding BlackBerry and mobile technology. In exploring RIM’s platform, he has learned what enterprises are looking for in mobility as well as what makes the innocuous BlackBerry so appealing to them. Recently Simon’s been covering RIM’s gradual move into an already-crowded consumer market, and the impact of burgeoning challengers, such as the iPhone, as well as long-time leaders, like Nokia, on BlackBerry’s advancement. With plenty of content under his belt, Simon will be branching off a bit to see what other smartphone manufacturers are working on while still using BlackBerry as a barometer. At IntoMobile, you can count on his posts being even-handed, well-informed and thought-out.
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