Tuesday, September 16, 2014

NFC in iPhone 6 is only going to serve one purpose

And that is to power Apple Pay.





One of the most widely circulated rumors about the new iPhones was that they’ll come with NFC or Near Field Communication. At its September 9th event Apple didn’t touch on this subject when it unveiled the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. After announcing the smartphones the company went on to talk about its new payment service called Apple Pay. During the new service’s announcement Apple mentioned in passing that it will only be limited to the new iPhones as the older models don’t have NFC.

Now you can be forgiven for thinking that the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus NFC chip will serve other purposes as well but that’s not the case. A spokesman for Apple has confirmed that while both new iPhones are indeed touting NFC, the chips won’t be opened up to third party developers. Moreover users won’t be allowed to share files and content between iPhones using NFC.

If Apple does open up the NFC chip to third party developers the potential uses will certainly been endless. This technology already exists in open form in majority of the BlackBerry, Windows Phone and Android devices available in the market today but Apple has chosen to keep it exclusive to Apple Pay.

Apple hasn’t ruled out opening up the chip to developers in the future though. Its taking precisely the same route it did with the Touch ID fingerprint sensor. Initially the sensor was not opened up to developers but with iOS 8 Apple announced that third party apps will be able to take advantage of Touch ID.

Perhaps next year NFC chip in the new iPhones will receive the same treatment as well. Keep your fingers crossed till then.

Source: Cult of Mac



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