Final yr, we have been thrilled to broaden entry to Google Pockets for customers in additional than 90 international locations and territories. Lately we expanded Google Pockets including +50 extra international locations, permitting customers to view and use digital passes within the app and on the net. And we have labored exhausting to make Google Pockets much more sturdy, versatile, and finally, extra feature-rich for you, our developer group.
Let’s dive into the thrilling new capabilities we’ve introduced at our I/O session this yr.
Digital IDs: A basis of belief, ease, and interoperability
Digital IDs in Google Pockets are dwell in the present day, constructed with belief, ease of use, and interoperability as our high priorities. We’re dedicated to bringing extra digital IDs to Google Pockets to help our customers throughout the globe. Now, it’s simpler to show age and id with Google Pockets.
- Increasing Availability: Residents in Arkansas, Montana, Puerto Rico and West Virginia will quickly be capable to save their government-issued digital IDs to Google Pockets. And in Arizona, Georgia, Maryland and New Mexico, customers will even be capable to use their cellular IDs on the DMV for improved and streamlined buyer experiences.
- U.Okay. Passport Assist: U.Okay. passport holders will quickly be capable to create digital ID passes with their U.Okay. passports and securely and conveniently retailer them in Google Pockets. At launch, we’re partnering with Rail Supply Group, which is able to provide prepare travellers the chance to make use of their digital ID to confirm that they meet the eligibility standards for choose Railcards on its Railcard retailing platform railcard.co.uk.
- New use circumstances: New use circumstances are on the best way in collaboration with our sturdy accomplice ecosystem. Quickly, you can use your digital ID to get well Amazon accounts, entry on-line well being providers with CVS Well being and MyChart by Epic, confirm profiles on platforms like Uber and extra.
- Introducing the Digital Credentials API: To empower you to leverage these digital IDs, we collaborated with ecosystem companions within the W3C to develop our Digital Credentials API. This unified and safe framework permits apps and web sites to request verifiable proof of age or id immediately from any digital pockets on a consumer’s gadget.
Connecting with households: Google Pockets enabled for youths
We’re very excited to supply mother and father and guardians a approach to enable their youngsters to entry Google Pockets with applicable supervision.
Dad and mom and guardians in choose international locations can now enable their children to faucet and pay in shops, plus preserve supported passes like occasion tickets, library playing cards, and reward playing cards, multi function place, on their Android units. Security is essential, so mother and father have controls with Household Hyperlink. They are going to get notified by e mail about each transaction, and may simply monitor current purchases, take away cost playing cards, and switch off passes entry in Household Hyperlink.
Better of all, there are no modifications within the Google Pockets API to help this enhancement.
Elevating consumer engagement: extra granular notifications
Final yr, we expanded cellular push notifications for the Google Pockets API, empowering you to ship well timed updates to your customers. This yr, we’re taking it a step additional with the introduction of discipline replace notifications.
Think about with the ability to set off a push notification not simply on a basic replace, however particularly when a specific discipline inside a cross modifications. For instance, when a consumer’s factors stability crosses a threshold, or when their tier standing is upgraded, a push notification may be triggered which is able to notify them that the information on their cross has modified. This granularity permits for a way more partaking and user-centric expertise, driving greater engagement and utility on the cross.
Proximity energy: introducing Close by Passes Notifications
Talking of notifications, we’re actually excited to announce that we are going to help Close by Passes notifications for the Google Pockets API. If enabled by the consumer, this characteristic is designed to supply well timed and related data by alerting customers about pertinent passes, akin to loyalty playing cards, provides, boarding passes, or occasion tickets, once they method a delegated focal point.
The Google Pockets app sends a contextual notification when the consumer is close to a particular location. This notification serves as a direct gateway, permitting customers to seamlessly entry the related cross with a single faucet. This direct entry promotes a extra fluid and intuitive interplay with the saved passes, encouraging customers to leverage the pockets’s capabilities extra successfully.
To make sure consumer management and adaptability, we’ve launched two new toggles to assist customers management their notification expertise. The primary is on the cross particulars display, that permits customers to activate or off notifications from that particular cross. This is applicable to all notifications associated to your cross, together with discipline updates, and close by passes notifications. The second is thru the Close by Passes notifications channel that permits customers to manage whether or not they obtain close by passes notifications. This empowers customers to tailor their notification settings based mostly on their particular wants and preferences.
Past transactions: unlocking Worth Added Alternatives
Partaking customers goes past simply notifications. To deal with this, we’re introducing Worth Added Alternatives which empowers you to combine customized modules immediately into your passes, showcasing related offers, promotions, and extra providers.
It is a important step in direction of remodeling passes right into a extra dynamic engagement floor for you and your customers. By highlighting these value-added advantages, akin to unique provides or improve choices, you possibly can information customers again to your app or web site, making a dynamic gateway for ongoing consumer interplay.
Bridging the hole: introducing the Cross Improve expertise
Customers have saved thousands and thousands of passes by manually including their loyalty playing cards to Google Pockets. These passes are unlinked from their service provider accounts, and, as a developer, you possibly can’t replace, or have interaction customers on these passes. We’ve now launched a Cross Improve expertise that prompts customers to signal into their service provider account and save a linked model of the cross. All you have to do is combine with the Pockets API’s Consumer Loyalty Program Enrollment characteristic, and be sure that customers can save the linked cross as soon as they efficiently register. We’ll be increasing on this characteristic sooner or later to allow customers who’ve added a cross utilizing our “all the pieces else” characteristic to hyperlink to the service provider account as effectively.
Seamless journeys: enhancements for journey
At final yr’s I/O, we introduced Auto Linked Passes, permitting you so as to add an extra associated cross robotically to your customers’ Google Pockets supplied they have already got an current cross issued by you. Now, we’re glad to announce an enlargement of this characteristic for airways. Builders from airways that combine loyalty playing cards for his or her frequent flyer packages with the Google Pockets API can robotically push boarding passes to their customers’ wallets as soon as they verify in for a flight.
Google Pockets customers already profit from streamlined journey on open-loop EMV transit techniques, utilizing tokenized cost strategies for seamless fare transactions. Our answer additional enhances this expertise by offering riders with detailed journey and fare development particulars. The tokenized open loop cost card acts as a bridge between consumer funds and transit techniques, facilitating this communication.
Constructing on this basis, we’re excited to announce the upcoming enlargement of Google Transit Insights to help particular cross varieties gross sales, akin to season passes, immediately linked to the customers’ tokenized open loop cost card. With this new functionality, builders will quickly be capable to leverage the Google Pockets APIs to implement seamless cross buying and administration, eliminating the necessity for separate transit playing cards.
Customers of Google Pockets will now see real-time transit cross updates, akin to on-time or delayed prepare standing, immediately on their passes. This enhanced expertise is powered by the Google Pockets API’s new dwell standing help and a seamless integration with Google Maps. Practice operators can allow this characteristic by making certain their tickets comprise the required fields and offering a real-time GTFS feed, making it accessible to main operators worldwide.
Personalization and safety: Safe Personal Photos
For some use circumstances, it’s essential so that you can create a cross that features a profile picture of the consumer you’re distributing the cross to. To attain this, we’re enabling Safe Personal Photos on passes.
With this characteristic, you’re in a position to outline passes that embrace photos which might be solely accessible to the holder of the cross. For instance, this lets you create digital enterprise playing cards, membership passes, or occasion tickets with the consumer profile picture on it.
Please observe that this characteristic can’t be used for official id verification.
Be taught extra and construct with Google Pockets
Google Pockets continues to evolve, providing builders highly effective new capabilities to create richer, extra partaking consumer experiences. From increasing digital id options just like the Digital Credentials API and safe non-public photos, to enhancing consumer engagement with granular notifications and Worth Added Alternatives, and streamlining journey with expanded Auto Linked Passes and real-time transit updates, these options are designed that can assist you construct revolutionary options that join extra deeply together with your customers and unlock new worth throughout the Google Pockets platform.
Please check out the next assets to be taught extra:
- Keep tuned with upcoming and previous occasions at our occasions web page.
- Strive one in all our codelabs to have a hands-on code expertise.
Discover this announcement and all Google I/O 2025 updates on io.google.
