Differences between Google Wallet and Apple Wallet

Differences between Google Wallet and Apple Wallet

Apple Wallet and Google Wallet both hold passes, but they behave differently. Knowing the differences helps you design passes that work well on both.

Adoption

Apple Wallet is built into every iPhone. Google Wallet is not pre installed on most Android phones, so holders download it first. Google Wallet ties tightly to a Google account, which makes passes easy to manage.

Where passes live

A Google Wallet pass saves to the holder Google account. The Save to Google Wallet button works on any device, but the pass only shows on the Android phone signed in with the same Google account or on https://wallet.google.com/. Passes sync across devices automatically.

Layout

An Apple Wallet pass has a front and a back. The front does not scroll, the back does. A Google Wallet pass has no back as of late 2026. It scrolls, with the key data on top, much like the Apple front, and the personal and back fields below. Both can hold long text on the back fields, though Google Wallet crops it and shows the rest when the holder taps.

On Apple Wallet back fields you can link to anything, a website, an email, or a phone number. Google Wallet uses dedicated link fields, so a link inside plain text does not work. Passcreator gives you special link fields that work in both wallets, so use those.
Both Apple (as of iOS27) and Google Wallet also support links on the front of passes in a limited fashion.

Google Wallet uses a square logo shown with rounded corners, with a minimum size of 660 by 660 pixels. Leave about 15 percent margin so the rounding does not cut it off. You can reuse these specs for your Apple Wallet logo for convenience.

Location based notifications

Both wallets support notifications based on GPS coordinates, shown on the lock screen. On Apple you can set a custom message. Google Wallet controls the message, so you cannot customise it.

Beacons

Apple Wallet supports iBeacons. Google Wallet has no beacon based notifications.

Personalisation, barcodes and updates

Both wallets support personalised and dynamic content, you can update passes on both, and both support 1D and 2D barcodes.

Push notifications

On Apple Wallet, content changes show as push notifications on the lock screen. Google Wallet applies the changes too. To push a message to Google Wallet passes, use the Send Push Notification feature on a template or a pass. Google sets some rules.

  • Holders must have notifications enabled for their passes.
  • A message may link only to a website or app related to the pass.
  • You may send at most 3 messages that trigger a push in any 24 hour period. Google may throttle delivery if it sees spam.
  • Google Wallet controls how the notification looks on the lock screen.
  • Using Wallet passes on iPhones
  • Using passes on Android
  • Google Wallet

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