By Johnny Wills | Jul 09, 2012 01:17 PM EDT
After Apple showed off the Passport app during the launch of iOS 6, reports poured in that Apple will also feature NFC radios in the next iPhone, dubbed iPhone 5. The tech giant is reportedly testing NFC chips on its next generation iPhone, but the new technology may not end up seeing the light of day in iPhone 5. Here's why.
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Citing sources within Apple, Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple has decided to leave NFC mobile payments out of iOS 6, and apparently out of iPhone 5 too. Some Apple engineers wanted the next iPhone to pack NFC chips, but the company executive decided to hold the gun until mobile payments get standardized, after a long discussion last year.
There is a great potential in NFC mobile payment market. According to research group Gartner, mobile payments will top $600 million in 2016. However, the real problem with NFC payments is the lack of standardization. Most of the industrialized world is not adopting it for another few years.
"Apple is always a comfortable number two. They let their competitors do their market research for them," said Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray, to Wall Street Journal.
Launching mobile payments with an aggressive approach can result in frustration among users. Apple is worried that consumers would blame it for non-availability of mobile payment option with merchants. The executive apparently decided not to pull the trigger and opted for a scaled-down version called Passbook, which can run without NFC chips.
Apple is ultimately learning from its mistakes in the past. The company advertised the new iPad as 4G LTE tablet in Australia. However, the LTE networks in the country are not compatible with the third generation iPad. Subsequently, users started complaining about poor data speeds and lack of LTE connectivity in the tablet. As a result, Apple had to ditch the 4G moniker out of new iPad in Australia.
Clearly, Apple is in no hurry to focus on development of NFC offerings in iGadgets. The company will wait until NFC mobile payment standards are implemented. So, we suggest you not to expect Apple deploying NFC mobile payments anytime soon, especially in iPhone 5.
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