It’s getting increasingly difficult to buy or sell bitcoins using an iPhone. But it may soon be a snap to do so on an Android device.

Apple has been methodically shutting down bitcoin wallets and exchanges on iOS devices over the last couple of months, with the latest victim being the mobile wallet from blockchain.info, a British bitcoin exchange, last week.  Jim Van Dyke, founder of Javelin Strategy & Research, commented on Twitter:

Banks fret over Apple erupting as payments innovator. Meanwhile, Apple is [the] leading platform/entity to slam the door on #bitcoin innovation

Google is taking a very different path. In late January, Google Senior Vice President Vic Gundotra, responding to a question on the social news site Reddit, said that his company was considering implementing bitcoin capabilities, and asked users how they would like to see Google work with bitcoin. Over the next several days suggestions poured into the discussion, hosted by Google. Below are 13 of the 1,395 ideas submitted to Google. Most center around enabling bitcoin payments within Google’s ecosystem, but a few are considerably more ambitious.

1. Develop a secure user-friendly wallet
2. Implement bitcoin payments into Google Play Store, Checkout, AdSense/AdWords, etc.
3. Build point-of-sale payment systems for merchants, online and offline
4. Add bitcoin market data to Google Now and Google Finance, treating Bitcoin like a stock
5. Display bitcoin (BTC not XBT) as a currency in Google search like CAD and USD, not like a stock
6. Integrate bitcoin into Google APIs, and then let developers build solutions and mashups on top of those APIs
7. Bitcoin/Litecoin/Dogecoin tips on YouTube — content creators can be paid directly by watchers
8. Integrate blockexplorer (a way to view bitcoin transactions) into search results
9. Build a general mobile payments system that is user-friendly and based on bitcoin
10. Expand into money services to grow financial inclusion for the underbanked via bitcoin
11. Turn bitcoin into Google’s PayPal, allowing for easy payments internet-wide & expand into the real world like a free debit card system, competing with banks
12. Enable simple peer-to-peer payments within a contact list and facilitate buying bitcoins with dollars
13. Integrate bitcoins with Gmail to make sending/receiving bitcoin as simple as sending an e-mail
    

The Bitcoin community has passion and energy, and there are some $8 billion worth of bitcoins out there. Bitcoins could turn out to be a significant weapon for Google in the fight not only for smartphone marketshare, but in the continuing payments battles between the two tech giants.

Learn more about what’s next in banking at Bank Innovation 2014 on March 3-4 in Seattle. Request an invitation here.