It seems that Google may want to ensure they beat Samsung Pay to market. A document leaked from McDonald’s (of all places!) pegs Android Pay’s launch date as Wednesday, August 26th…that’s right, tomorrow. We don’t know how reliable McDonald’s internal documents are since obviously there is little precedent. That said, if Android OS Marshmallow (which includes Android Pay) launches tomorrow it would follow Google’s usual Wednesday release cycle. It also wouldn’t be surprising that Google is not making a lot of noise around the launch. When Apple Pay launched last October, it did so rather quietly – likely a move to ensure there were minimal launch issues. Even with a launch tomorrow, you probably shouldn’t rush out to pay with your phone at Bloomies through, these updates usually take a while to percolate down to your specific handset.
But perhaps things aren’t so binary; there could be a third option besides ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ The document also lists an August launch for Samsung Pay. While Samsung Pay does not officially launch until September 28th, the service opened to select users in the US (read: beta) on August 25th. If tomorrow comes and goes with no general release of Marshmallow, the August 26th date for Android Pay could be indicative of the start of a wide beta test of the service.
