Obviously you are in the know about how these things work.  I believe it will become more stream-lined in the months to come.  Apple is a huge name and Apple Pay will boost Google Pay on name alone as well as customer demand and use.  With the new Samsung phones beginning to show signs of even more mobile pay functionality, I believe the movement will progress going forward.

I tried SoftCard a few times but was never able to really get the app and the AMEX card to get on the same page together.  That was just my experience, and I had tried the service just weeks after deployment of the feature.  I did like the sign on incentive, which for me I think was $50 at the time, and GW was only $30 when it began.  The extra dollar here and there with the AMEX Serve on SC would've been nice, but like I said, I could never get ISIS, VZW, and AMEX on the same page together.  My app wouldn't sync with the account, the SIM card wouldn't recognize the app, VZW would send me to AMEX and vice versa.