PayPal Brings Their Android App Up To Speed With Their iPhone App
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No matter how big your company is, maintaining platform parity — that is, keeping all of your apps functionally identical across multiple smartphone platforms — is tough work. Even Facebook can’t seem to get their Android app quite up to par with their iPhone app.
Later today, PayPal will be introducing version 2.0 of their Android App, which seems to be aimed at bringing it up to speed with its iPhone counterpart.
Now, PayPal has had an Android app for about a year and a half. That app has always supported the most crucial feature: sending money. It wasn’t exactly pretty, but it got the job done.
Along with a visual overhaul which makes it a more-or-less one to one match with the iPhone version, today’s update brings over a handful of tools:
- Bump support: Remember Bump? It’s an app that lets two users swap contact info by fist-bumping their smartphones together. Back in late 2009, Bump opened up their API to allow third-party iPhone developers to swap just about whatever they wanted between bumpers, and PayPal was one of the first to hop on that train. Bump’s API has since been ported to Android, and now the Android app offers up support.
- Split the Check: You and your friends just ate your way through 200 bucks worth of Sushi, and the restaurant only takes one credit card per table. Oops! PayPal’s Split The Check feature lets you tally up everyone’s total, and then send out a payback request from anyone who didn’t have the cash.
Expect PayPal to be dumping a considerable amount of effort into mobile in the coming months — according to the company, they’ve handled twice as much money over mobile in the first six months of 2010 as they did in all of 2009.
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