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Comment by hadem | Hacker News Reader

Can you use Google Wallet on a rooted phone?

I don't believe you even need to root to sideload Google Wallet. I installed and regularly use Google Wallet on my Verizon Galaxy Nexus. I'm running the Bugless Beast ROM which comes rooted but I don't think I needed to be rooted to do it. In fact Google Wallet displays a warning saying your device isn't supported if you are rooted (the app still works fine though). Verizon just blocks it in the Play Store. If you get your hands on the APK it should install fine like it did for me.

As far as I know it works perfectly but Wallet will complain about the security implications of the phone being rooted.

If you are using Verizon, no. I have a rooted Galaxy Nexus Prime running CyanogenMod 10, and the Play Store has always said, "Your device isn't compatible with this version." when attempting to install/upgrade Google Wallet.

When I first got this phone, before rooting it, I had found a "sideloaded" apk of the app which worked for awhile, but I was unable to upgrade to newer versions of the app easily.

> If you are using Verizon, no. I have a rooted Galaxy Nexus Prime running CyanogenMod 10, and the Play Store has always said, "Your device isn't compatible with this version."

I'm assuming you were running a pre-release build; Google Play/Google Wallet payments have always had a spotty track record on non-stable releases of CM. I was able to run Google Wallet just fine when I was running an older version of CM (rooted).

But you don't need to root to sideload it, either, even if you're on Verizon.

My only successful Google Wallet experience was before both rooting and installing CM, with a sideloaded apk, using the build that shipped with the phone.

No offense, but just having root doesn't magically change the behavior of the store.

I hope I didn't inadvertently imply a correlation between phone rooting and Play Store behavior. It doesn't work for me now because Google wants me to upgrade my currently installed sideloaded version of wallet in order to function at all, but the Play Store won't let me and I'm tired of sideloading the app.

Yep. That combined with the fact that every single checkout counter in my city has their NFC receiver disabled, I just gave up. It's a long rant and I'm on mobile but NFC for payments in its current form was dead on arrival in my opinion. It could be done correctly but it's not.

I wish that it wasn't do risky and capital heavy to get into the payments game...

My AT&T HTC One X has NFC, but it will absolutely not install Google Wallet, even when rooted.

You can't install it from the play store but side-loading works fine with or without rooting the phone. You have to continue to side load all updates though so keep that in mind.

It's Android, you don't need root to install apps that Verizon doesn't want you to get from the Play store.

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