It looks like Google is getting ready to overhaul its Wallet and take it beyond the Android ecosystem. Earlier today, MetroPCS announced Google Wallet support for Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphone. Google has announced on its website  that the next version of the Google Wallet was coming soon, with a link for interested users to Request an invite. Invitation requests is often used in the pre-release stages as a tool to gauge consumer interest in that product or service.

Clicking the Request an invite link opens up a new page, which asks you to select the type of mobile device you use, with three options to choose from — Android, iOS and Other.

Google Wallet, up until now, has only been available on Android, due to its usage of NFC, which the iPhone and most phones in the Other category (Most Blackberry and Symbian devices) lack . Opening up the program to non-Android devices, could mean that Google may be looking at an alternative to NFC based mobile payments, which can be implemented across multiple platforms, and NFC will potentially not be a dependency factor for a device to be wallet-ready.

What do you think of this new move by the search giant?