Google made big news in Barcelona on Monday, as the Internet search giant looked to make waves right out of the gate at Mobile World Congress 2015.
Speaking to his company’s latest announced plans, Sundar Pichai says Android Pay is on the horizon and will serve as a mobile payments offering to challenge Apple Pay, the hugely popular mobile money platform launched by the iDevice maker last year.
But can Android Pay make up for the epic failure of Google Wallet?
“This time, they’ll be mostly leaving the apps themselves to developers, and Android Pay is intended primarily as a developer tool made available via API, rather than a centralized app like Apple Pay, for instance,” Darrell Etherington of TechCrunch explains.
Android Pay sounds like it’ll offer one half of what Apple Pay is on the iPhone, providing users with a way to store their payment information locally, and make it available securely to third-party developer apps via API. Those apps will then determine when and where you can use the payment cards, via store (and perhaps payment provider) specific apps that can be branded however third parties like.
Google didn’t announce Monday when Android Pay will launch but more details are expected this spring at the company’s annual I/O developer conference.
