A new update to the Google Pay app is rolling out in the Google Play Store today. While the update itself, version 1.57 for those keeping score at home, doesn’t bring a lot of excitement on the surface, there are some potentially exciting things in the code that could bring big improvements to the app.
A teardown of the app by the team over at Android Police points to code within the Google Pay app where airline boarding passes could be supported. This would allow for the Pay app to be the center of your travel, not just a tap-to-pay app. Given that the app already supports some transit tickets with more coming, supporting airline boarding passes isn’t a big stretch.
The addition of boarding passes to Google Pay wouldn’t be unique. This is something that Apple’s Wallet app does now (as did its predecessor Passbook) and as a frequent traveler, it is extremely handy having boarding passes for multiple flights and carriers in one place.
The question will be when we will see this new feature land in Pay. Teardown are great (and by-the-by, the Android Police team do an awesome job on them) but just because something is in the code, it doesn’t mean its release is immanent. It could be several months before we see it land in the stable version of the app – but all indications are it is coming.
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