Google Wallet gets updated, adds transaction search

Traditionally Google tends to roll out most of its app updates on so-called Update Wednesdays, but there’s certainly no rule saying it has to be that way. With this in mind, Google has brought us version 9.0 of the Google Wallet app. Jumping a whole letter number, you’d probably expect the changes here to be pretty massive, but that’s really not the case. Aside from likely bug fixes and performance tweaks, the new update brings just two new features, transaction search and a Maps widget that shows the location of purchases.

Transaction search is certainly the more useful of the two, placing a search bar on the Transactions screen that lets you type in a keyword and quickly find past transactions. As for the Maps widget, you can now find exact locations where physical purchases were made. In other words, it will track the retail stores you shop at and place them on a map. The idea behind this feature is to make it easy to notice suspicious purchases, like an item that is bought at some random store hundreds of miles away from your location.

Both these additions are nice, though not necessarily game-changing. Oddly enough, Google Wallet is also subtracting a feature, the order screen is no longer present. Orders previously made it easy to track past purchases that were made online and then physically delivered.

As is typical of Google, the rollout here will likely take a few days to reach everyone, though you can always trying checking for the update by visiting Google Play.