Google Wallet is sticking around. Photo: Google

Google’s ready to take on Apple Pay with a new mobile payments platform called Android Pay. It will work over NFC, and it will come with an API that will allow third-party developers to integrate the service into their own Android apps.

Photo: Google

Google is stepping up its game in the mobile payments space this year by striking a deal with AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile to pre-install Google Wallet on all Android phones.

The move comes after Apple Pay has started to take over the mobile payments space, despite launching less than six months ago. With the new pre-installed Google Wallet deal, Google will hopefully add more consumers to the feature that’s been around since 2011 but hasn’t grown as quickly as the company hoped.

Photo: Killian Bell

Just like one of The Avengers — where bickering superheroes team up to fight a far more oppressive evil — Apple and Android fans on reddit have united forces to boycott what they see as the unethical blocking of NFC payment systems by a number of different retailers, affecting users of both Apple Pay and Google Wallet.

The reason for this blocking of the NFC service is that the retailers in question — including Gap, Old Navy, 7-Eleven, Sears, Kmart and others — are part of an organization called Merchant Customer Exchange, which uses its own payment system called CurrentC.

Google Wallet is coming to Google Glass, and it’s going to be the coolest way to send money to your friends.

According to sources familiar with Google’s plans, the new app is already being tested internally, and it’s expected to make its way to all Glass users in the near future. When it does, they’ll be able to pay friends simply by telling their specs to “send money.”

Google has officially announced that it will discontinue support for its Wallet Tap & Pay service on all devices running versions of the Android operating system below KitKat 4.4, starting Monday, April 14, 2014.