There has been a good deal of speculation in the past few weeks about the possibility of NFC making a feature appearance on the rumored iPhone 5. Unfortunately, not all rumors come true. We now know that in fact there is no iPhone 5, but simply more of an update to the current iPhone 4 model, and no, NFC is not part of the feature upgrade.
Is this a missed opportunity for NFC? The answer, without question, is yes. Given the huge impact the iPhone has had with consumers all around the world, the inclusion of NFC would have added significant momentum to the push for the widespread introduction of the mobile payment technology.
Recently in Australia, we’ve seen the NFC juggernaut gaining substantial momentum. According to a recent story in Computerworld Australia, industry heavyweights Visa and Westpac bank are supporting the rollout of NFC with initiatives already underway to rollout the required infrastructure, in addition to small-scale pilot programs.
Whilst we often talk about NFC in the context of mobile payments, the Computerworld story raises another usage case, and one that could potentially be more compelling to someone like Apple, or for that matter any of the other major smartphone vendor; the provision of information – in this case tourist information – via NFC. Mobile payments aside, the ability to provide information via NFC is currently limited only by imagination.
Is it the end of the world that iPhone 4S does not include NFC? No it isn’t, but it would have been nice. Given their typical update cycles, with any luck, we’ll see an iPhone with NFC within the next 12 months. Should this be the case, then it would likely force the hand of the other smartphone vendors into catch-up mode and within another 12 months, almost all smartphones would be NFC equipped.
Assuming NFC payment capability were to reside in the pocket of most smartphone users within two years, it’s then a matter of the payments industry building and promoting the technology to drive adoption. Simply giving consumers access to NFC will not ensure adoption. Anyone sent an MMS lately?
It would be remiss of me here not to acknowledge the untimely passing of iPhone creator and technology industry visionary, Steve Jobs. Stay hungry. Stay foolish.
Tarik Husain is business development director for mCommerce at Sybase 365. For more information go to http://blogs.sybase.com/mobilecommerce/