The Sprint Samsung Galaxy Nexus is being boasted to come with NFC support (the Verizon variant doesn’t have it out of the box although it is available in app form) and now we may see another popular smartphone further help the uptake of NFC by the general public: the iPhone 5.
iPhone 5 to join Samsung Galaxy Nexus with NFC support?
The next-generation iPhone is rumored to come with NFC support when it launches later this year. A new 9to5mac report shares the details:
“We had some time to talk to a well-connected developer at Macworld who was building an app that— among other capabilities— includes NFC reading for the purpose of mobile transactions. We were obviously curious why they would do that, noting that third party NFC readers for iPhone were not popular (aside from the recently announced Moneto, above). The developer told us that he had no hardware knowledge, but he had spoken to Apple iOS engineers on multiple occasions, and they are “heavy into NFC.”
Simultaneously, TheFastCompany talked with Ed McLauchlin, head of emerging payments at MasterCard, who also indirectly hinted Apple as one of the partners the company is currently in talks with:
“But when asked to give an estimate for when smartphone payments would become commonplace (in other words, would 2012 be the year of NFC or contactless tech?), McLaughlin demurred–and may have dropped a hint about Apple’s future in the industry.”
“The timeline is always as rapid as it makes sense for consumers,” he says. “That’s a combination of having a critical mass of the merchants, which is what you’re seeing right now, and getting devices into the hands of consumers. I don’t know of a handset manufacturer that isn’t in process of making sure their stuff is PayPass ready.”
“So that would include Apple then?”
“Um, there are…like I say, [I don’t know of] any handset maker out there,” McLaughlin says. “Now, when we have discussions with our partners, and they ask us not to disclose them, we don’t.”
Enough said.
