Google Pay now lets you pay friends and store plane tickets

Welcome to 2018, Google Pay.

The payment platform announced today that people can finally pay friends with the app (lol), save concert tickets and boarding passes (yay!), and manage their payment information in one spot (wow).

These updates were announced earlier this year during the Google Pay (formerly Android Pay and Google Wallet) rebranding, but the features rolled out today have long been functions in competitor payment platforms like Venmo and Apple Pay.

Google loyalists could previously still request and pay each other money, but they could only do it through a separate app called Google Pay Send. The functions of Google Pay Send are now integrated into the Google Pay app, so the update essentially eradicates Google Pay Send.

Obviously Google's aim here is to streamline its money-related services and better compete in the space. Google has its work cut out for it, though: Apple Pay has included features like ticket-saving for a while, and has had time to iterate on them to the point where they're very good experiences.

For ticket-saving, Google Pay at the moment has a limited selection of places from which you can save tickets (including Ticketmaster and Southwest Airlines) but there isn't much support from other common ticket sources like Eventbrite and other common air carriers, such as Singapore Airlines.

Google does have one advantage, though: Google Pay is cross-platform. The new features are available in Google's Android and iOS apps, and user information syncs between them as well.