In a standalone conference during MWC this week, Samsung has announced the forthcoming launch of its own mobile wallet app and API for developers which it calls Samsung Wallet. Samsung’s Wallet is expected to function much like Apple’s Passbook, in which you’ll be able to store membership cards, boarding passes, tickets to events and other types of coupons. The initial list of partners also seems to resemble the initial list of Passbook partners with Walgreens, Hotels.com, Expedia, Major League Baseball and more to be named later.
It seems that the only difference between Samsung’s Wallet and Apple’s Passbook seems to be the inclusion of NFC support for Wallet, but Samsung has confirmed that the functionality for Wallet will not involve mobile payment support, instead using its newly minted partnership with Visa known as payWave which also uses NFC. More specific information on the launch and availability of Samsung Wallet is expected later on, as the app and service is expected to launch next week on March 7th.
What also remains to be seen is whether Apple will respond to Samsung’s Wallet, as it features many similarities to its own Passbook and even copies functionality in some aspects. To make things even more confusing, even the logo for the app resembles Apple’s Passbook app, with merely a slight variation. A video by French Android site FrAndroid has also been posted to YouTube which was taken during the announcement showing off Samsung Wallet’s key functionality and is posted below.
What, Samsung copying or just outright stealing from a competitor? Never, I refuse to believe that.
/sarcasm