Android Pay app teardown reveals references to a promotional game

Google hasn’t been shy about how it promotes Android Pay. The NFC-enabled payment system that replaced Google Wallet has undergone several promotions with partners, but now it looks like Google might be baking in a reward system of its own to help reward loyal Android Pay users. Android Police did an .apk teardown of the most recent Android Pay update and found some curious references in the code.

Several of the new lines of code were found to have a “tap_game” prefix, with mentions of some kind game involving coins peppered throughout the new code. There’s no way of telling if this will be a limited time promotion or something that’s sticking around for a while, but the game’s error messages make it clear there are actual prizes to be won.

A network connection is needed to open the cracker
Check your network connection and give it another go.
You can also find out if you won a prize later. Well send you a notification to remind you or you can go to the Shop. Tap. Reward. card in your Android Pay app.

Lets try that one more time
Something went wrong. Try opening the cracker again.
You can also find out if you won a prize later. Well send you a notification to remind you or you can go to the Shop. Tap. Reward. card in your Android Pay app.

One specific string mentions “open the cracker” which the author of the teardown speculates could tie into a Nutcracker holiday-themed update. However, there’s no mention of this from Google and it’s possible we won’t know what these references in the code could mean until Google decides to reveal its plans.

Either way, consider us interested in what Google has planned for Android Pay in the future.