Will Apple's iPhone 5 have NFC? Does it even need it? Recently the rumour mill has been rattling with suggestion that Apple is to shun the technology due to "lack of standard across the industry." But now, apparently, an entrepreneur working on a top-secret NFC project has revealed that Apple will be adding NFC to iPhone 5.
NFC is one of the buzz words of 2011 and though it has quietened down in recent weeks, at the start of the year it was thought that the iPhone 5 and iPad 2 would almost certainly have NFC capability at launch but the iPad 2 has been unveiled and NFC was not one of the new features. So will iPhone 5 be equally NFC free or are we in for a surprise?
We all know Apple like to be the trend starters rather than followers and companies are already working on NFC projects (Google Nexus S and the upcoming touch-based BlackBerry handsets have NFC) so if iPhone 5 shuns the tech by the time we see iPhone 6 NFC won't be exciting any more but standard and it certainly won't be a term associated with Apple the same way that MP3s and tablets are.
We know consumers want to use their iPhones for making payments we've seen it with the popularity of iPhone hardware such as the Square. Surely Apple don't want to keep letting them profit of the iPhone.
NFC is more than just mobile payment though. It will let the iPhone wirelessly communicate with a variety of things from 'smart posters' to locks on doors. Basically the iPhone could be transformed into an electronic key, an electronic credit card, electronic ticket, etc etc.
Exciting huh? Or is it just me?