Google launched its mobile payment service today, Google Wallet. If you haven’t heard about it, that’s because Google wanted it like that. It appears that it was just a soft launch, and Google made it available only to a few retailers. (Read: It’s still in beta.) Google already tested Wallet at several clients over the past couple months, and it had said Wallet would debut over the summer. Wallet works as an app on the Sprint Nexus S Android phone. Once installed on a phone, you just tap phone on a terminal, and the money slips away from your bank account.

A soft launch makes sense if you want to keep expectations limited as you test out your product, but given Google’s reputation for innovative services, like Gmail and Google Docs, it seems strange that Wallet has remained so far under the radar — not to mention the fact that’s only available on Nexus S. Just how many people own a Nexus S Droid phone? Wallet’s future is very much still undecided.

Read more at TechCrunch ^[1].