What you need to know
- Google Wallet is now rolling out its support for Apple Wallet passes to more users following its limited availability in March.
- Its functionality is not working properly as users face errors when downloading a pass saved in Apple's ".pkpass" format.
- Support for Apple's standard pass format joins Google's work to bring more boarding passes to its Wallet app.
It seems that Google Wallet is activating support for Apple Wallet passes for more users, but a problem has been spotted early on.
According to 9to5Google, the ability of Google Wallet users to access important ".pkpass" files has become widely available to more users. This file format is Apple's format used for digital passes.
Unfortunately, the publication has spotted a frustrating problem with Wallet's support for Apple's format: not every app supports it on Android.
It was discovered that the "Add to Apple Wallet" option consistently failed to appear in a few Android apps. Services weren't giving users the appropriate Apple file format for them to throw into Google Wallet for safekeeping. Another attempt delivered an error when adding some minor league baseball tickets to Wallet.
The error prompted users to try opening the link in Safari (the default browser on iOS), but Android users cannot do that.
The report adds that users can use an iPhone to transfer a pass to their Android device if problems become too troublesome. The publication states users can "share a pass via messaging and other apps" from an iPhone to an Android device, which will deliver the necessary ".pkpass" for them to import into Google Wallet.
More users should begin noticing support for Apple's digital pass format available on Android today (Apr. 5) and beyond. More importantly, apps should also start conforming to this newfound support, but it will likely take time to iron out the errors.
Android users started noticing support for Apple's pass format in March, though it was constricted to a smaller number. Such support has been coming for a long time, as Google stated it was working on implementing functionality back in 2022. However, evidence of the feature in development was only spotted in 2023.
The latest support for Wallet is one of many, as Google recently brought in additional support for more boarding passes directly from Gmail. Users receiving confirmation emails for movies and flights can now easily pop those passes into Google Wallet. The update also included archiving older passes, keeping what's important clean and concise.
