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[Edit: This modification is now in my FREE MoDaCo Toolkit - details]
This is now an Xposed mod. Read on for more details.
Google Wallet is super cool. It allows purchasing of things using the NFC chip in your device using any card you have in your Google Wallet account. But, there is a problem - and that's that Wallet is only available for a very limited subset of devices on a limited number of operators in the US. It also displays a rather annoying banner if you're rooted.
Hence the need to patch out some checks.
Now, i'll start by saying that there may well be a patched APK out there already (I didn't check), I chose to create the patch myself because, when i'm putting in my credit card numbers etc. I like to know what i'm working with. I started with the latest version I downloaded personally from the Google Play Store (by spoofing my operator with 'Market Access') which I then patched as required.
The patch
The APK has 3 features that I patched out. The first was a device check - the app will now work on any device. Of course you need to have NFC for it to be useful! I tested on a HTC One X successfully (as you can see in the screenshots above) but of course YMMV. The second patch was an operator check - the app should now not care which operator you are on. The third patch was removing the root warning. Google Wallet doesn't actually stop you using the app if you're rooted, it just gives you a warning on screen (which is a little annoying), so I removed it. BUT... rather than having the warning in app, let me post it here instead. If you are using Google Wallet on a rooted device, really think about which apps you are giving root access... because there is the possibility that a malicious app could do bad things. There's no evidence of this happening, but it's possible. As always, be wary of what you're installing and where it came from.
As of this release, the patch is not a patch of the APK itself, but instead an in-place patch using the Xposed system. This means that the patch should continue to work when Wallet is upgraded (unless there are major internal changes). It also means you don't need to copy a patched APK to /system etc. which is a bit of a pain.
You must install Xposed to use this patch - you can find it in this post.
Download
To use the patch, after you've installed Xposed from the link above, simply download and install this APK - DOWNLOAD (ROMraid) - and used the 'Xposed Installer' app to activate the module. After rebooting your device, you'll be all set!
Disclaimer
If you use any of the above modified APKs or top up methods, you do so at your own risk! Please let us know how you get on in the comments below, so we can refine / improve the process based on our experiences.
WARNING
If you plan to wipe your device, switch ROM on your device or otherwise do anything unusual (including 'clearing data' on wallet), it is highly recommended that you use the 'reset wallet' option in the Wallet app settings. Failure to do this could render Wallet inoperable on your device!
Another note of caution, we're using a 'hack' here, so it's probably not the best idea to load up your Prepaid card with a ton of money in case Google blocks hacked wallets, something changes, etc. etc. and you could lose your money. Again, use at your own risk.
And finally...
If you find the above useful and you want to support my work on this and all the other MoDaCo projects, please consider signing up for a premium MoDaCo account. Thanks!
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