Android and iPhone users may jealously protect their phone platform of choice, but secretly, both camps know there are some features the other phones have that theirs do not. Google is now, it seems, addressing one place it underperforms, by improving Google Wallet so it can be better at something the iPhone does brilliantly: digital tickets and boarding passes.
Google Wallet just got a lot more like Apple Wallet.
March 21 update below. This post was first published on March 18, 2024.
Both Apple Wallet and the equivalent on Android phones, Google Wallet, are good when it comes to housing digital versions of credit and debit cards. But the iPhone version has always been stronger for passes—it’s no coincidence that it originally used to be called Passbook.
Because it’s done this for longer, apps for airlines, theaters, concert halls and others routinely include a button designed to add them to the Wallet where they’re easily found.
It now looks like the passes that slide so easily into the iPhone Wallet app could pop into Google Wallet just as smoothly. Android writer Mishaal Rahman posted on X that files in the .pkpass format used by Apple can now be imported into Google Wallet.
And 9to5Google has followed up by saying that other users have confirmed that they have been able to do the same, though this doesn’t seem to have rolled out to everyone yet.
When it is more widespread, this will be a significant uptick in convenience. Those websites and apps with buttons inviting users to click to add passes to Apple Wallet all too often did not include an equivalent for downloading to Google Wallet.
As one Reddit user puts it, “For a few years, Google didn't have its own digital ticket system, so whereas I can now download cinema and train tickets in the Google wallet format, it used to be the only option was the apple pkpass format. And there are still some places that only offer the apple digital ticket format as it's been around significantly longer.”
With Google offering the same compatibility, Android users should be able to click on the same Apple Wallet link and add the pass to their Android phone.
There have been third-party apps which could have the same effect, but an official way to do it with Google is welcome.
What’s not yet clear is if Google will be able to offer the same versatility as Apple, where you can update a boarding pass if your airplane seat changes, for instance.
March 20 update. The updating of key Google apps continues apace on Android phones. Contacts—an app really none of us could do without—has just been updated in two big ways. First, it has a gentle redesign. The row of category filters such as Phone contacts, Email contacts and Company has gone, though you can retrieve it by tapping on the filter icon which now sits near the account name. Losing this certainly contributes to a slicker, cleaner look to the app.
Secondly, and much more funkily, the app now offers a new section. Tap on the tab at the bottom right of the screen, marked (in a slightly utilitarian way) Fix & Manage, and you’ll be taken to a page of ways to adjust things. There are useful items like Merge and fix, which means you no longer need to have seven different cards for one person, in the way things get a little out of hand as time goes on, instead putting them all in one place.
And, as spotted by 9to5Google, there’s a new section called Contact ringtones which is designed to set custom ringtones for individual contacts, so you can tell who’s calling without even turning your phone over if it’s face down. There are dozens of ringtones to choose from. On the Google Pixel, using Pixel Sounds, you can import your own ringtones, too.
This may seem like a small change, but it’s enough to make choosing and assigning a ringtone to individual contacts, or managing those contacts to change the ringtone, say.
In other words, it’s not just the Google Wallet that’s being upgraded—Google has plans for key apps across the Android user experience.
March 21 update. And there’s more: the Google Play Store app is also being updated. I’m not sure how successful it is, but here we go. The first change is to the Search bar which until now has sat at the top of the screen, with a magnifying glass and a text bar marked Search Apps & Games. In the new design, the row of tabs at the bottom of the screen has been increased from three to five. Previously just Games, Apps and Books, there are now two more items, Search, which now sits in the middle, and Offers which occupies spot four of the five.
At first, I had high hopes for this redesign. When Apple, a couple of years back, reconfigured Safari on the iPhone to put the search bar at the bottom instead of the top, all hell broke loose. There were so many complaints that Apple retreated and to this day there are two layouts for Safari which users can choose between, one with the search bar at the bottom, one with it in the old place at the top.
Thing is, I tried the bottom placement for the search bar and it turns out it’s really useful there. Your thumb can reach it easily and it adds a cute extra functionality: you can swipe between open web pages by running your thumb across the search bar.
So, I thought, this must be what’s happening here, with reachability improving hugely thanks to this new placement. I was wrong. Tap on the Search tab and—guess what?—the search bar you need to use reappears at the top of the display. This makes little sense to me.
To be fair, there is extra functionality here, as well. Below the Search bar are search terms in a spread of panels under several headings. One is “You might like” and suggested categories are AI apps, Offline games, Mobile payments apps and more.
Below these is a heading marked “Explore games” with suggestions such as Action, Simulation and Role Playing. Each one has a dedicated icon such as a dear little helicopter for Action and a piece of a puzzle for, well, Puzzles.
Maybe Google has more in store for us here, but it lacks the excellence of the makeovers for Wallet and Contacts, right now.
