iPhone incorporates NFC Features

Here’s a great news for all iPhone lovers out there. On 6^th of June, 2017 at the WWDC, Apple implied that iOS 11 and above will be having NFC features integrated. When Apple released the news everyone went crazy, especially those tech fanatics. To be honest, some people have been waiting for this for quite so long just to take advantage of the various NFC applications.  Unlike Samsung, which has incorporated the feature for a while now, and benefited from all sorts of its applications out there starting with tap2pay and ending with attendance registration, Apple was a bit late regarding the matter but I think they had a very good reason.

NFC-Android-where-is-my-staff

However, nothing other than Apple Pay for contact-less payments was discussed at the WWDC. As you may know that QR and barcode technique could be somewhat troublesome as they require users to open the camera of their smart phones to scan the code, before the data could be read. Unlike the NFC tags that can be read without launching a separate application, simply by tapping your smart phone to the tag to read its content.

Some blogged that the biggest take away was that iOS 11 beta is available for download now but most users won’t have the support until the fall when a public software release is pushed out. Executive Director of the NFC Forum Paula Hunter agrees saying “With both Android and Apple developers creating apps that can read NFC tags, brands have a huge opportunity to enhance consumer engagement. Many of the 36 billion objects being connected to the Internet by 2020 will likely take advantage of these tags. The key to market growth will be to deliver a predictable consumer experience across such enabled products and services.”

Apple has already showed that its NFC chip has extended capabilities beyond Apple Pay. For example, the Apple Watch could unlock a hotel room and can communicate with gym equipment and transfer fitness data like heart rate and calorie burn between devices in real-time. As for privacy concerns, Apple has been known for its extreme security and privacy policies as there were not even one violation occurred within the past years, so it should be interesting to see the various use cases developers can come up with once iOS 11 launches in the fall.

Obviously NFC is extending in other verticals besides payments and Apple is very well aware of that; they just have other priorities on their mind for the moment. However, I’m pretty sure that they will develop some ground breaking features with it. Just behold.