Google Wallet gets single sign-on, lets you add credit card via iDevice camera

Google Wallet 2.0 for iOS (iPhone sccreenshot 002)Google Wallet 2.0 for iOS (iPhone sccreenshot 001)

Following a significant delay, the Internet giant Google finally released its free Wallet for iPhone app back in September 2013. But in bringing its troubled mobile payment service to Appleā€™s platform, Google left out some of the capabilities found in Wallet’s Android counterpart, such as the ability toĀ make in-store payments with the app (not surprising considering iPhones lack NFC).Ā The company added a few new features via two recent updates and today the Wallet app has been refreshed with some new functionality.

For starters, you can now instantly sign on to Wallet if you use other iOS apps from Google. Google previously rolled out this rather useful feature to its popular iOS apps, allowing you to, say, just tap your Google Account already used in Chrome in order to log in to the Gmail iOS app.

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Google Wallet version 2.0.12117 has another cool feature: now you can add a credit or debit card to your Wallet account simply by taking a picture of it using your iOS device’s camera. This will capture automatically not only the credit card number, but the expiration date as well.

In line with rumors, Google recently launched a physical prepaid debit card to users in the United States, which can be used to make payments with your Wallet account. If you own a Google Wallet Card, the app will now allow you to use it to spend your Wallet Balance at millions of MasterCard locations.

As a bonus, you’ll be also able to withdraw cash at any ATM.

Google Wallet is free in the App Store.

The universal app weighs 10.4MB and requires an iOS device capable of running iOS 6 or later.