Speculation and insider information seems to plague the news at this time of the year. While we eagerly await Samsung’s big announcement in about a week or so, and IFA in Berlin is happening in early September, news of new devices trickles in slowly through the rumor mill. It’s certainly no secret that Google is going to be working on new Nexus phones for launch this fall, a trend that the company has kept up with for years now, but the question continues to loom in who makes it and what will they look like. We recently saw some leaked specs for both of the rumored Nexus flagships coming out of Google, one of which is supposed to hail from LG in South Korea while the other phone hails from Huawei in China.
What hasn’t been talked about a lot is what sort of software is going to be packed in with the new Nexus phones when they launch. We’re not just talking about launching with the next version of Android, which is code named Android M for the time being, we mean other new services or apps that Google might launch with the debut of new Nexus phones. Specifically we’re looking at Android Pay, which is Google’s rebranding of its failed Google Wallet electronic payments system. Google was at the cutting edge of electronic payments years ago when it launched Google Wallet alongside the Galaxy Nexus in 2011, dawning a new era of payments with a Near Field Communication, or NFC chip, inside the phone. Unfortunately for Google retailer takeup was limited and Credit/Debit card and phone companies weren’t to keen on playing along with this scheme, eschewing Google’s solution for half-baked internally developed solutions instead.
Now that all of those products have failed and the dust has settled, Apple’s electronic payments system Apple Pay, which was launched last fall, has taken over where Google’s failed. Thankfully for Android users Google isn’t giving up the fight yet and has rebranded Wallet into Android Pay, a more friendly system that’s going to be launched with Android M and the new Nexus phones this fall, fingerprint scanners and better security in tow. This should be enough to please the payment gods in financial land and likely land Google’s new payment service next to Samsung and Apple’s services as the keys to a cardless future.