Everything Apple has ever done historically (with mobile) has been iOS-only, what possible reason would there be to suspect this would be any different?
I doubt it. I think Apple Music is a trojan horse (much like the original iPod) to get people using their music service.
They MAY release the payment stuff for Android (so users can receive payments) but I doubt they want to be a general payment provider for Android users.
Don't Apple Pay and Android Pay operate almost identically now? The original Google Wallet/Pay implementation which I used years ago via NFC was different. I don't believe the Android Pay name change is just branding.
And given the number of Android devices in the wild far, far surpasses the number of iOS devices... using this service seems like more of a hassle than not.
And given the number of Android devices in the wild far, far surpasses the number of iOS devices
That's obviously true globally, but not for some of their more important markets. iOS and Android are roughly equivalent in the US for example, with the latter having maybe 10% more of the market – I think?
While there's no doubt that instant money transfers are particularly useful in less developed markets, it's not like it wouldn't still be a useful service in the US.
One of the key differences here (for me at least) between an apple only app (assuming that is the case) and something like square cash is that if the person I want to send money to doesn't have an iPhone, I wouldn't be able to send them money, whereas if they don't have square cash I can tell them to download it and then send them money and with the current promotion, even get $5 for referring them.
Fair, my thought process always seems to conclude that having multiple apps is a downside, but that argument really doesn't hold up well once I consciously think about that fact.
In NYC, iPhone users seem pretty heavily concentrated in Manhattan. This means certain groups of people are probably hanging out in nearly entirely iPhone user enclaves. [0]
