Google Pay 2.118 confirms the old app will be replaced by the Flutter one

Last week, the Google Pay team announced that the Google Pay for India app (formerly called “Tez”) is getting a major design rewrite with Flutter, Google’s open-source UI development kit. Google currently maintains two versions of the Pay app: one for global users and one for Indians. In the blog post, Google said they were “looking forward to launching Google Pay on Flutter to everyone across the world on iOS and Android.” Some took that to mean that the existing app for global users will be rebuilt with Flutter, while others took it to mean that the old app will be killed off. Tonight, Google Pay version 2.118 rolled out on the Play Store, and it confirms that the latter will happen.


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The new Google Pay app built with Flutter.

An APK teardown can often predict features that may arrive in a future update of an application, but it is possible that any of the features we mention here may not make it in a future release. This is because these features are currently unimplemented in the live build and may be pulled at any time by the developers in a future build.

Strings within the APK state that there will be a “deprecation prompt” that will inform users to download the new version of the app.

<string name="deprecation_prompt_get_gp3">Get the new GPay</string>
<string name="deprecation_prompt_install_gp3">Download the new Google Pay</string>
<string name="deprecation_prompt_open_gp3">Open the new GPay</string>
<string name="deprecation_prompt_switch_to_gp3">Use the latest Google Pay</string>

There’s also a new Activity with more details on the app migration. The screen tells users that they’ll “still find [their] favorite features, plus track spending, get helpful insights, earn unique rewards, and more!” If you tap the “Get the new GPay” button at the bottom, the Play Store listing for the former Google Pay for India app will be launched. Currently, the new app is still regionally restricted, so I am unable to directly download it from the Play Store onto my own device.