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Google Tries Again to Get You to Pay for Stuff With Your Phone

Android Pay looks to avoid Google Wallet’s earlier fatal flaws.
Image: Google

Android Pay, Google's mobile payments system that was first announced earlier this year, is now rolling out to select users of newer Android smartphones. This is Google's second major attempt at a mobile payments system, following the failure of Google Wallet, which launched in 2011, to attract any sort of meaningful uptake.

This time around, however, Google has the backing of a number of retailers, including stores like Panera, Rite Aid, and Whole Foods, to help get the system off the ground. Android Pay also works regardless of which wireless carrier you have, addressing another Google Pay failure when wireless carriers like Verizon and AT&T balked at supporting the service.

Perhaps more interesting is how Android Pay differs from Apple Pay, Apple's mobile payment system that launched last year. Both systems use a process known as tokenization to carry out transactions. With tokenization, one-time "tokens" are generated at the point of sale, and it's these tokens that retailers see when processing a transaction. (In that sense, both systems are more secure than merely swiping your credit card since the retailer does not see your actual credit card data, but instead only sees these generated tokens.) Apple Pay generates these tokens using a chip physically located inside the iPhone, but Android Pay uses a cloud-based method to generate these tokens.

Now, Google did tell Motherboard that a limited number of tokens can be stored locally on the Android device in the event that there's no active internet connection present, but no specific number of tokens was given.

The takeaway, then, is that Apple Pay can be used entirely offline without a care in the world, while Android Pay is at least partially at the mercy of an active internet connection. Or you could just use cash, and avoid the internet altogether.