Android 15 is now adding the ability to set a default wallet app. So on Pixels, you can change from Google Wallet to a third-party app.
Wallet…app?
My wallet is in my pocket, it’s got some cash, my cards, a plaster in case someone gets a cut, a clothes pin in case a button fails, and a spare hayfever tablet.
How am I going to pay for things in person using my phone - which is mostly the point of a wallet - if my phone battery is dead, or I don’t have any data left for internet usage, or my phone crashes, or the app stops working, etc?
And why would I even have to pull my phone out at all, and risk it being snatched and stolen by a passing thief if I’ve got a perfectly functional debit card and cash in my actual wallet, which I don’t mind having stolen anywhere near as much…
I mean, ok, you do you. There’s a huge amount of people (me included) who find paying with their phone extremely convenient.
Also, this article is about giving users more choice, not forcing anyone to use a wallet app.
What a dick you are.
No-one is going to snatch your locked, trackable, account-associated, encrypted phone out of your hands. But a wallet full of cash and debit cards? A much better target.
You carry a bunch of random shit around with you? Well, some of us prefer to carry the utter minimal.
Phone crashes? What phone do you have that regularly crashes in this, the year of our Luigi 2024?
Network outage? That’s not how it works.
Dead battery? Anyone bothered by this has already got a solution.
Here’s the thing: I also don’t use my phone for payment much for same reasons as you, but I don’t feel the need act like a total cunt about it.
Such a boomer moment. Lol
Hey, leave us boomers out of it! I love being able to pay with my phone. No more carting around a handbag, stick my phone in my pocket and I’m good to go. I can buy stuff, read a book, chat with friends, listen to music and podcasts… brilliant.
I want to set cake wallet or monerujo as default
Cool. Google wallet has always worked out good for me though
It does work fine, but it’s yet another avenue of data collection for them and another reduction of choice by a monopoly.
I Didn’t even know it was possible to use different wallets
Does that mean you can use third party (dare I say FOSS) apps for NFC payments?
Banks were able to create their own NFC payment app, which can be set as default payment provider.
I’m not sure what else Google Wallet is able to do, but I guess this might be about being able to have a default wallet with tickets for events and similar.
Hopefully there’ll really be open-source wallets. With banking/nfc pay this isn’t possible for service ands security reasons.
Hopefully it’ll mean you can just have your bank’s app installed to handle it so you won’t have any third parties gleaming a look into your purchase history.
That’s already possible. My bank doesn’t support GWallet and I could set it as my default payment provider just fine
Are there any? (Searching Fdroid as we speak)
There are not, and probably will never be, as they require proprietary blobs (e.g. see this issue in Catima)
Yes several on fdroid if you can’t find hit me up tho it should be pretty easy to.
Maybe mention and link them?
I was under impression that the big issue would be adoption. Like my bank supports only Google Pay and Samsung Pay, but definitely not a “FOSS Pay”.
Do you think we will see alternative wallet apps pop up from Cashapp or PayPal or even directly from bank apps? Also, would they be able to support the other non-payment functions of electronic wallets with transportation/event tickets and such?
Could you not already do that? My previous bank had their own nfc payments bullshit, but I’ve always been able to set that as my default.
Yes you could, I use my banks app for NFC because google wallet sucks (it stops working when play integrity fails, so on most non-rooted phone with unlocked bootloader)
Good. I’ve only had bad experience with Wallet. Tried to use it, added a card. Some time later I tried opening it and it was constantly crashing. It was like that for few weeks. I’ve tried upgrading, downgrading - the same. This is supposed to be a critical app. I’ve uninstalled and I’m never going to try it again.
That’s odd. Has always been dependable for me and my family over the years.
