Ice Cream Sandwich and Google Music in a Wallet push

It won’t come as a terrible shock to anyone that Google is leveraging Ice Cream Sandwich software for smartphones and tablets in order to up-sell you to its paid offerings, namely the new Google Music service. After all, it’s Google’s software and Google’s ecosystem and others are guilty of this as well. For example, Apple wants your credit card number before you can download free apps from the App Store.

And now, TechCrunch discovers that those who enter their Google account credentials into their Ice Cream Sandwich device are prompted to sign up for Google+. While expected, it means any Ice Cream Sandwich device owner is a potential Google+ user. Yeah, Facebook should be worried.

The other thing Ice Cream Sandwich does is it prompts you to enter your credit card information. This is also an intriguing move with far-reaching consequences. Of course, Google needs your credit card for purchases in Android Market.

But, as Wallet now gets integrated with Checkout and Music gets its own place in Android Market, an integrated Google ecosystem is slowly but surely forming before our own eyes. And the more you live in that ecosystem, the harder it gets to switch over to something else. Just ask Apple, the creator of arguably the stickiest platform out there.