What is so special about doing that? All companies cross develop features year after year...things you see on the iPhone first will eventually find their way to the Android OS, and vice versa (most times). Apple has always shown a desire to polish features until it meets their historic release characteristics...take NFC for example...it was out for years before the iPhones got it, but once the iPhone got it, NFC became a house hold name with Apple Pay.
NFC was not made a house hold name with Apple Pay, and neither were Mobile Payments.
People were well aware of NFC for quite a while before the iPhone got it. It's been all over the headlines, including Mobile payments with the carrier blocks etc. That's notwithstanding the tons of ads that Samsung saturated the channels with showcasing NFC and even naming it specifically in some cases.
Apple Pay did well because a lot of things were in its favor by the time Apple launched it:
1. People are a bit more security-conscious these days, with all the Snowden mess that went on.
2. The smartphone market is more mature, and bigger.
3. The Federal Government (here) is already making banks transition to NFC Bank Cards (which they are issuing right now, just got one) and so merchants are already starting to naturally transition to that type of equipment.
Back when Google launched Google Wallet, NFC on the smartphone market here was virtually unknown and no one was really moving in that direction. The technology did gain more support, even before Apple Pay, and it was quite well known by then... This is one case where Apple benefitted from waiting; and waiting also gave them a huge advantage in that they could use that spare time to hammer out agreements with banks and merchants - time that Google didn't give themselves.
The big deal about Apple pay has nothing to do with it "making anything a household name," which I frankly don't believe it did. It's that it came out of the gate with a lot of partners and Apple's agreements with those institutions is likely to make it easier for other payment systems to get more traction since they're already implementing a similar system already.
It's a lot easier to get a store that was already stocking NFC readers for Smartcard or Google Wallet to accept Apple Pay. The barrier to Entry is lower then. That's why people were excited about it. Apple getting into mobile payments is more pressure for Banks and Merchants to pull the trigger.