“Earlier this week, a new feature shown in images of a purported iPhone 5 could mean that the iPhone 5 could come with NFC,” Sarah Clark reports for NFC World. “But an analysis by Anandtech of those images and other information believed to be known about the latest Apple device leads them to conclude there is no room for an NFC antenna in the new iPhone. ‘Given the primarily metal backside of the new iPhone, it’s highly unlikely that NFC is in the cards for this generation,’ they say. ‘In fact, given the very little space at top and bottom dedicated to those glass RF windows, you can almost entirely rule it out.'”
“A patent application filed by Apple in December 2007, however, suggests that the iPhone maker could find other ways to add NFC to the device,” Clark reports. “The ‘Touch Screen RFID Tag Reader’ patent describes a method of building an antenna into a touch screen, thus avoiding the issue of a metal back interfering with the signal.”
Clark reports, “A second patent granted in July 2011, meanwhile, covers the addition of an NFC antenna to electronic devices with metal elements. ‘Electronic device with conductive housing and near field antenna’ covers a variety of ways in which NFC could be added to a metal-backed iPhone 5 without causing signal issues.”
Read more in the full article here.
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