Apple’s next-gen iPhone to offer built-in NFC?

“For the last few months there have been rumours that Cupertino has been showing renewed interest in Near Field Communications. This is backed by an Apple patent from two years ago, which covers a ‘Touch Screen RFID Tag Reader’ and recent comments from an NFC group that Apple has been testing an RFID-equipped prototype,” Bill Ray reports for The Register. “But Nokia has been pushing NFC for years, so why could Apple succeed where Nokia has failed, and more importantly, why might it choose not to?”

Ray reports, “Near Field Communications (NFC) is a two-way standard for low-power-short-range radio communication. NFC builds on the one-way-induction-powered Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) standard by mandating that NFC devices have an induction-powered tag (which will operate even if the phone loses power) and an RFID reader which can be used to interact with other tags. So an NFC device can be an RFID tag, and an RFID reader, or even both at the same time.”

Ray reports, “We have comments, reported by Near Field Communications World, from the chap who runs the NFC Group on LinkedIn. He claims to have reliable information that ‘Apple has built some prototypes of the next gen iPhone with an RFID reader built [in]… its not full NFC but its a start for real service discovery.’

“Putting NFC into an iPhone would give Apple a distinct feature advantage: Symbian^3 will have APIs for NFC built in, but ^3 devices are a long way off, despite optimistic presentations at the recent Symbian Exposition,” Ray reports. “It was that dry, technical, explanation from Lee Williams which prompted speculation about how Steve Jobs might announce the capability: ‘Bang! My groceries paid for! Bang! My train ticket paid for! Bang! My car unlocked!'”

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Note: ‘Tis “boom,” not “bang,” Reg hack.