‘s Android y is what llet should have been

BY GreenBot Staff

Published 28 May 2015

Move over, llet. tch out, Apple y. said Thursday at its I/O conference that it is launching a successor to llet, called Android y, for Android phones running KitKat above. 

Android y will work with AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, though not Sprint, apparently. The service will work with Android 4.4 KitKat on up, including the new Android M, will launch about the same time Android M does, executives said.

Android y will be simple secure, promised Dave Burke, the vice president of engineering for Android at . l you’ll need to do is unlock your phone, place it near the NFC terminal at over 700,000 stores in the U.S., that’s it. Supported stores will include Macy’s, Bloomingdales, McDonalds, Subway, more. And you can use it to purchase physical items from online stores, too, via sites apps like GrubHub, Orbitz, NewEgg, Uber, more.

roid pay partners

creates a virtual card for your transaction, so that your card won’t be shared with the store itself—similar to how Apple y’s secure tokens perform. ’s partners include Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express. You’ll be able to set up Android y through the banks’ own apps, or through itself.

Android y will also use your fingerprint to unlock the phone with Android M—again, like Apple y. Doing so will send a secure communication from then phone to the NFC terminal. You’ll then receive a notification on your phone that the transaction has gone through. And that’s it.

“’re at the start of an exciting journey. feel that the same partner model that fueled Android’s growth seven years ago to more than a billion users will enable Android y to be successful, too,” Burke said