Comments on: iPhone 5′s NFC snub will keep technology out of mainstream

By: JohnM

JohnM — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 18:18:47 +0000

So just because Apple is falling behind means that customers do not want it? There are an estimated 100,000,000 smartphones that do have it. A millions more are shipped every week. This news simply means that Apple is no longer an industry leader. Shortly it will become just another company playing catch up.

By: DanoX

DanoX — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 14:47:49 +0000

Apple was right to leave NFC out, NFC is security nightmare and a Eastern European hackers dream, besides the current crop of copycat companies Samsung can carry the the football solve the problem and be a hero.

By: eyemahsource

eyemahsource — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 23:02:24 +0000

Can someone at Gigaom do us a favor and explain exactly why NFC is differentiated from Bluetooth IV. I don’t want yet another battery sucking radio with additional antenna complexity. Can’t Bluetooth be powered down to reduce its range to be equivalent to NFC? I also agree that this will be a security nightmare without 2 factor authentication such as fingerprint or iris scan. It will have to be better security than credit cards currently provide. Also adding mature Bluetooth tech to existing terminals should be a much cheaper retrofit than starting from scratch with new NFC hardware.

By: TheAGamer

TheAGamer — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 22:12:46 +0000

IPhone 5 made a big mistake not employing NFC. We are all waiting for payments to happen in couple of years time but marketing initiatives can happen now. The elephant in the room is that the handset manufactures that have the capability don’t shout about NFC and the average consumer doesn’t know about the potential of NFC. If they did, MNO’s would be adding value left right and center to sell their packages. E.g. There was a big campaign in the UK where Orange teamed up with a food chain that had NFC poster promotions near tills. Tap for free food if you have an orange phone. If Samsung, Nokia, RIM started promoting NFC and how it can be used in every day life except payments as its not ready yet then ad agencies would jump all over it creating demand. Before you know it people will be tapping for all sorts of physical media to get things.

By: RaptorOO7

RaptorOO7 — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 18:56:26 +0000

NFC for me was never a deal breaker for me, I had it in several phones already and rarely used it since its not well implemented in the US market. However, Apple’s choice to skip NFC because it would make the thinner iPhone not as thin is a poor excuse. The iPhone 4/4S was pretty thin already and with the new display technology they reduced it a bit already. They could have added it and made it dormant for a later adoption point. Of course we all know what it really means is when and if Apple does support it they will expect users to just buy a new iPhone, and users will even if that means iPhone Gen 7 is the one (next year).

By: Sinif

Sinif — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 07:56:40 +0000

BluStor is coming

By: Dinesh C

Dinesh C — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 01:48:54 +0000

There’s a lot of talk about Apple missing the boat on the many promises of NFC, particularly when it comes to mobile payments. And, I certainly believe NFC will make it onto the iPhone eventually. In the meantime, innovation is still happening when it comes to mobile retail transactions. Consumers are constantly looking for other ways their mobile phone can make their shopping experience more convenient and developers shouldn’t sit around and wait for NFC to make this happen. (indeed shouldn’t tie directly to a particular technology) One area that’s evolving when it comes to retail transactions? The receipt. Whether your smartphone is NFC-enabled or not, you can now use a mobile app to get a digital receipt zapped directly to your phone. No more dealing with the hassle of paper receipts.

Cheers,

Dinesh C.
Proximiant Inc.

By: Peter A

Peter A — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 00:05:26 +0000

This is standard Apple M.O: Wait for the pioneers to botch it, learn from their mistakes, then get it right and enter the market. I also agree that NFC for payments is nothing more than a solution looking for a problem.

By: Anil Kumar

Anil Kumar — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 22:14:23 +0000

After using NFC to make payments at my local grocery store and the coffee shop near my office, all I can say is I love when I can pay without having to swipe the credit card physically. I just “flash” it near the reader and the payment is done. Now, the world will simply wait for Apple to adopt NFC, and then suddenly NFC becomes a futuristic technology capable of changing our lives.

By: roboooc

roboooc — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 18:28:38 +0000

It’s telling that the absence of NFC on the new iPhone 5 hasn’t been much of a surprise to those of us who have observed Apple’s progress in this area. It would have been great if Apple had included NFC; but is that really going to obstruct the march of NFC? I don’t think so.

The vast investment in NFC mobile contactless payments and services is not going to wane. And with the NFC-enabled Android, Windows 8 and RIM handsets dominating the smartphone market NFC is going to progress at a pace without Apple. This could be Apple’s loss.

Global brands such as MasterCard, Visa, Barclaycard, Orange and Google have committed, and will continue to commit. millions on developing NFC capabilities.

iPhone users will also miss out on another big benefit of NFC which is the ability to interact with marketing campaigns that use NFC tags embedded in posters and product packaging. This sort of activity will initially drive the use and demand for NFC services before payments take off as mainstream.