Tap-to-pay has been around for years, but for a long time it required merchants to own dedicated, often expensive hardware. Over the past couple of years, the ability for merchants to offer tap-to-pay through phones has become popular, and now Wix is offering that functionality through Android phones.
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Stripe today announced that it would expand support for NFC payments on smartphones to Android, after launching the functionality on iOS last year.
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Wireless charging has finally become a standard in the smartphone world in the past few years with even the most stubborn holdouts giving in. Now, wireless charging is set to expand a bit further thanks to an updated spec for… NFC?
One minor inconvenience that plagues Android Pay is that with the wide variety of Android phones comes many different locations for the NFC chip — and thereby some frustrating experiences if you can’t find it. On one device it might be located at the top, another in the center, and another at the bottom. As the Android Pay app continues to show users more about how to use the service, it seems that an upcoming update might help users actually find that NFC chip…
After declaring its lack of interest in joining Google‘s new Android Pay system for contactless, phone-based payments, UK bank Barclays announced that it would make up for this by creating a similar service of its own, building on the NFC support for its own Barclaycards already started earlier this year.
And in fact, as of today, the service has quietly gone live…
It seems all the big hardware makers these days are looking to launch their own mobile payment solutions. Handset manufacturers like Apple and Samsung have already done so, while LG is working on something. Now it looks like Xiaomi, one of China’s biggest smartphone makers, is set to follow suit.
A report from ETNews in Korea suggests that LG’s mobile payments service will not be smartphone based. At least, not exclusively. A ‘White Card’ has leaked showing a digital credit-card sized device which will be able to store multiple credit/debit cards’ details and enable a user to pay from any account, using just the single LG Pay card. In essence, it’s LG’s version of the Coin card which launched on KickStarter a couple of years back.
One of Samsung’s mobile execs has hinted that the company is planning to expand Samsung Pay to cheaper handsets eventually, according to a report by Korea Herald. Shin Jong-Kyun responded “it will gradually expand” when asked specifically if it would move the payment technology to budget handsets at some point.
At launch, Samsung Pay will only be available on the newest flagship phones. The company opened up its beta program to US consumers a couple of weeks back, and is expected to officially launch the payment service at the end of this month.
Samsung Pay is Sammy’s attempt to compete with the likes of Android Pay and Apple Pay in the mobile contactless payment market. The one thing it has on both those platforms, however, is that you can use it virtually anywhere that has a magnetic card strip readers, rather than being limited to just NFC payments like Google’s and Apple’s systems. Its biggest restriction is handset support. Once it’s officially live, Samsung Pay will only work on the Galaxy Note 5, S6 Edge plus, S6 and S6 Edge. For a company with the product portfolio Samsung has, that’s restrictive to say the least, especially if it wants Samsung Pay to become widely adopted and used frequently.
Update: Yep, it’s official.
Update 2: The update to Google Wallet is rolling out now, but you can grab the Android Pay APK over at APKMirror right now. Keep an eye out for our hands-on.
According to the well-connected Artem Russakovskii as well as a Re/code report, Android Pay is set to be launched today. This little tidbit comes despite previous rumors — thanks to leaked Verizon documentation — that the service would be launching on September 16th…
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Today in a Reddit AMA (“ask me anything”) held by four employees of OnePlus, the Chinese smartphone upstart fielded questions on everything from when VoLTE (voice-over-LTE) will be enabled in the OnePlus 2 to what exactly happened in its fallout with Android-focused blog Android Police. But the most interesting questions the four employees answered were in regards to why the new phone doesn’t include hardware features standard in other recently launched smartphones like NFC for touch-based payments or wireless charging.
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Samsung Pay, the manufacturer’s contactless mobile payment service, is rolling out in Europe soon thanks to a partnership with MasterCard in the EU. Once the service launches officially, card issuers will be able to enroll in MasterCard’s Digital Enablement Services (MDES), and apply the capability to all kinds of MasterCard credit, debit, prepaid credit and small business cards.
What makes Samsung Pay a different to most mobile payment services is that it works with both Magstrip and NFC POS terminals, meaning you will be able to pay virtually anywhere that has a card machine.
OnePlus gets a lot of hype for just about anything they announce (including limited-availability toys for April Fools day). Part of that is because of their genius marketing (I can’t count the number of people who used “#hype” and “#NeverSettle” in their Google+ posts, ironically or not, when mentioning the OnePlus 2 over the last few months), and the other part is that they actually make really good stuff. The OnePlus One is a stellar phone. In my opinion — and many agree with me — it was probably one of the best of 2014.
The OnePlus 2 also looks like it’s going to be a stellar phone, and we’re looking forward to reviewing it in very full soon. It offers a lot of great features, it comes in a physical build that’s marketable as something — much like Apple’s hardware — extremely sexy, and it packs some specifications that contend with top-of-the-line flagships. All of this, and it comes at a price — if you’re buying in the United States, at least — that makes it seem ridiculous to ever buy a Samsung Galaxy S6 or iPhone 6 Plus off contract.
But the #NeverSettle company, which did a pretty good job at bringing a phone with hardly any compromises last year, seems to have introduced something that requires its buyers to make some compromises. From the outside, at least, there are two that stick out to me. First, the OnePlus 2 completely forgoes any NFC hardware. Yes, the recently-made-official Android Pay is going to be completely useless on a OnePlus 2. Secondly, the phone — in exchange for USB Type-C support — ditches any kind of Quick Charge feature…
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The newly-announced Android Pay is pretty cool – it allows you to pay at retail stores and inside mobile apps without having to take out your wallet or punch a bunch of card details into your glass-screened phone. But the logical conclusion to reducing the friction of paying for things is not tapping my phone against an NFC reader, but rather just not having to take out my phone at all! Well, without the same fanfare that was given to Android Pay, Google said they’ll have a solution for just that.
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Google is planning to overhaul its mobile payment system in May during its I/O developer conference, a new report suggests. Google recently purchased “some” technology from SoftCard, with several major US carriers planning to pre-load Wallet on all new phones in the coming months.
The revitalized payment software is being referred to as “Android Pay” by Ars Technica, and like Apple’s own similarly named product, it will support payments in physical retailers as well as in-app sales. The entire offering will take advantage of Host Card Emulation, which essentially presents the phone to an NFC terminal as a clone of the card.
Android users might have raised an eyebrow at the media attention given to Apple Pay, given that the Google Wallet service has been available since 2011. However, it now appears that Google may be benefiting from Apple raising the profile of mobile payment: sources cited by arsTechnica report that Google Wallet service has seen the number of users almost double, with a 50% increase in weekly transactions during the past couple of months …
McDonald’s announced on Tuesday that it now accepts Softcard for NFC-based mobile payments on Android at its restaurants across the United States. The move comes just over a week after McDonald’s became one of the more high-profile launch partners for Apple Pay, which enables iPhone users to tap and pay with their smartphone.
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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15uIFmysZV4]
Let’s face it, when companies are interviewed at tech conferences, they talk about all kinds of crazy stuff that will never be launched – like the idea of wearing a digital tattoo to unlock your phone. Except this time, more than a year after first discussing the idea at the D11 conference last May, Motorola has actually done it and is showing it off in a new video …
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The super smartphone leaking machine known as @evleaks is back yet again with a first look at another upcoming smartphone headed for T-Mobile USA. What makes this smartphone the current buzz around town is its place as the first QWERTY device to catch our eye in some time. While the device itself looks to be low-end, it catches our attention as some of us believed the life and times of the QWERTY smartphone era were in our rear-view mirror.
ISIS, the mobile payment joint-venture backed by three of the nations largest carriers is now officially live nationwide. After numerous delays and a testing phase in just two markets, the mobile payment system is live for AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon customers.
Samsung Gear Patent Filing
Following a report from SamMobile last week sharing some specific specs coming in Samsung’s much rumored Galaxy Gear smartwatch, today GigaOm reports on a few more details from developers with prototypes of the device. On top of confirming a Sept.4 unveiling at Samsung’s events scheduled to take place in Berlin and New York, the report claims Galaxy Gear will include a 2.5 inch OLED display, dual core processor, an accelerometer, speakers, and built-in NFC:
It is said to be around 2.5 inches diagonally (and 3 inches diagonally including the case), is powered by a dual core processor and should have pretty decent battery life. In addition, we are told the watch has a camera that is integrated into the strap and even has tiny speakers in the clasp of the watch, plus built-in NFC to allow for bump-to-sync and authenticate. The watch uses Bluetooth 4.0 LE to connect with smartphones for connectivity… In addition, the watch has a built-in accelerometer that makes it possible to switch it on when it is moved up towards the eye. It could be a great way to wake the watch and also the apps and manage battery power. The watch screen will support the usual touch, swipe and select type gestures but will likely not have text-input.
The report adds that watch will work with a Samsung watch manager app on a smartphone and utilize apps from the Samsung App Store, not Google Play. GigaOm also claims that Galaxy Gear will support Facebook and Twitter integration at launch. The Samsung App Store integration could mean the device will only be available for Samsung device users:
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Sprint has been working with Google to expand support for Google Wallet on its devices and has added the HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4, and Samsung Galaxy Note 2 to the list of compatible devices.
Both the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 are widely considered leading Android smartphones currently so this should create a solid platform of support for Google Wallet.
Google Wallet allows users to make purchases by placing their phones near receivers built for NFC (near field communication) and supports Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover.
(via AndroidGuys)
You can now download at the Play Store with a lot of new features this year:
