I'm sorry... what? How is this different from Google making Google Wallet back in 2011? They both use the same tech (PayPass, an industry standard), and both are made by an OS company.
Google only partnered with MasterCard, and only released in a limited number of handsets (they were all Nexus if I remember correctly). Apple partnered with Visa, MasterCard and AmEx ahead of time, as well as a dozen or so merchants, so that anyone who gets an iPhone 6 can actually use ApplePay nearly immediately without jumping through hoops or hoping they have the right handset. At least that's what I read as "broad, inclusive."
For what it's worth, I tried using GWallet when it came to my Nexus S years ago, and got the strangest look from the guy at the convenience store when I held my phone to the reader and the register marked the transaction as complete. Just because Google was first by no means did it right or best, as evidenced through us not all walking around with Androids paying for things.
Even if they do it better, that doesn't mean they're the first.
Not even Steve Cook has a reality distortion field strong enough to pull that one off.
I'd also say that the only thing that may stop Apple Pay from being a business failure is that it's Apple doing it this time (even tho, frankly, their UI looks significantly worse than Google Wallet, and has far less functionality, and Google Wallet is no longer impeded by the carriers)...
But that's not what the article section i quoted was talking about. It just made an unqualified claim "this is the first time an OS maker has made a payments product for the physical world"
but the bigger point: you're quibbling over the first of three points i made in an aside (the other two being that google wallet has way more features, and that google wallet is now not blocked from being on Verizon et al). The larger point is that the article saying that this is the first OS to have a payments solution is... very strange.
Android is a popular operating system. Android made payments a platform service. Therefore, that sentence is blatantly false.
Bad android sales doesn't affect Google. Bad iPhone sales would tank Apple.