While it is not yet clear whether we’ll get to see two Nexus smartphones unveiled by Google and its partners later in the year as we’ve heard before, we can be sure that at least one of the companies Google has partnered with to make the next Nexus smartphone (s) possible is either LG or Huawei. Another thing we can be sure about is that not only will the next Nexus parade Google’s latest flavour of Android, currently under testing as the M preview, but that we’ll also get to see Google’s own fresh take on mobile payments, Android Pay, showcased.
That has been partly confirmed by Business Korea which cites its own inside sources. An unspecified date some time in October is being thrown around and since previous Nexus releases have at times happened in Q4, it is not a stretch of our speculative nature.
With mobile payments like Android Pay also comes the (not mandatory) need for some added security as far as the user interaction is concerned i.e. authorizing payments. Android M, which the next Nexus smartphone(s) will obviously run on, has support for fingerprint scanners hence making those upcoming devices the perfect candidates for Google to showcase an integrated payments solution. There’s no word on if LG is also working on a fingerprint sensor for the phone it is said to be making for Google but we can count on it. Huawei already has a history of bundling fingerprint scanners on its devices so we expect nothing less from the Chinese if they are indeed in the loop to co-create a Nexus.
Android Pay is Google’s response to the likes of Apple Pay and Samsung Pay and, like Apple’s service, it will only support NFC terminals. This is unlike Samsung’s approach which involves enabling mobile payments on both old magnetic terminals (using MST – Magnetic Secure Transmission) as well as the new NFC terminals.
