Charles Moore of the iPhone 5 News Blog wades through the conflicting reports of whether or not the iPhone 5 will feature Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, which would let you to pay for items, board airplanes, and start your car with just one swipe of your iPhone 5. Read what he has to say.
In a blog a couple of weeks ago entitled “Near Field Communication (NFC) Payment Support Looking Less Likely For iPhone 5,” I cited a a report by The Independent’s Nick Clark suggesting that likelihood of Near Field Communication (NFC) technology being a feature in the iPhone 5 appeared to be dimming, based on reports from unnamed sources at major U.K. wireless service operators telling him that Apple had informed its service provider partners in recent meetings that iPhone 5 will not support NFC, attributing the decision to the current lack of a clear NFC standard across the industry.
However, Clark also noted that Apple “is understood” to be developing its own NFC protocol that would channel payments through iTunes, and last week Forbes blogger Elizabeth Woyke commented that his no NFC in iPhone 5 assertion came as a surprise given that NFC has been a rumored iPhone 5 feature for months., and that since Google built NFC into its latest phone-specific version the Android OS, it has been was widely presumed that Apple would add NFC support too with the fifth-gen iPhone.
Ms Woyke cites her own insider sources who contradict Clark’s deduction and still maintain that iPhone 5 is still on track to get NFC technology, and that manufacturers of NFC readers have been preparing to handle additional NFC traffic after the anticipated summer iPhone 5 release, and links to Business Insider’s Dan Frommer agreeing with her.
Frommer also notes that Germany’s Deutsche Telekom, the parent company of T-Mobile stoked iPhone NFC anticipation by mentioning Apple during a presentation on e-wallet payment system.
Ars Technica’s Chris Foresman has weighed in A on Clark’s NFC for iPhone 5 skepticism, noting that more factors supporting iPhone gen-five getting NFC technology include Apple applying for a number of NFC-related patents, assigning an NFC expert as product manager for mobile commerce, and advertising to recruit a test engineer for NFC technologies and global payment platform managers.
Joining the debate is gigaom.com blogger Charles Jade, who notes that notwithstanding Apple’s recent NFC-related job listings and hires, it takes time to integrate major new technologies into products, also observing that the iPhone 5 is expected to share iPad 2 tech, and the tablet was launched this month sans NFC, which lends credibility to the school of thought that maintains iPhone 6 in 2012 is more likely to be be the first iOS device to have NFC, while contrarily observing that with Google’s Nexus S phone already having NFC built-in, and RIM CEO Jim Balsillie having recently announced at the Mobile World Congress that “many, if not most,” BlackBerry devices launched this year will have NFC, these rapid NFC in smartphones developments render it questionable that Apple would want to allow its competitors a big headstart in exploiting and offering the technology is all the more reason to deduce that Apple will be pulling out all the proverbial stops so that if at all possible NFC will be included with iPhone 5.
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