back to article iPhone to tap NFC, rumours say

More rumours are doing the rounds that Apple has NFC plans for next year's iPhone, this time with the intention of bringing the iPhone even closer to Cupertino's desktop platform. Readers of El Reg might not be surprised by Cult Of Mac's news that Apple plans to embed Near Field Communications into the next iPhone, but …

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  1. Notorious Biggles
    Jobs Halo

    What's the betting...

    That everyone lauds Apple for it's innovation in NFC for the iPhone 5?

    Of course, the Nokia C7 has an NFC chip in it already, it just doesn't do anything.

    But Apple have an incredible knack for getting praised for doing things others were doing first. Like video calling...

    1. Steven Hedges 1

      umm...

      of course, the innovstion would be getting the chip to do something...

    2. Goat Jam
      Jobs Halo

      Apple has knack

      for properly implementing stuff that others have tried to do earlier but in an utterly kack-handed fashion.

      It's all very good pointing out that Uhgg invented the wheel first but if Uhgg spent all his subsequent efforts on trying work out how to cook his meals on it then how much credit does he really deserve?

  2. jonathanb Silver badge
    Jobs Horns

    Solution looking for a problem?

    You can already sync your phone to your desktop from half-way round the world if you have exchange server or mobile-me. What additional benefit does this offer?

  3. Tom Chiverton 1

    Ummm

    Or, alternately, I can impersonate someone at all their online locations by simply borrowing their phone for a few minutes ?

    Not a good plan.

  4. Chris O'Shea
    Thumb Down

    Nokia and NFC

    @Steven: Nokia 6131 already does NFC, http://europe.nokia.com/find-products/devices/nokia-6131-nfc

    It's very much chicken and egg, and as the article suggests, finding a killer app ... it would be possible to have your iPhone or Nokia phone act as your London Oyster card or contactless payment system, but why would you really *need* to?

    Having my windows settings etc. on my mobile phone could be cool ... sit down at a terminal somewhere, have a dialog box pop up saying "you appear to be Chris, please verify your ID" and a passphrase or swype code or something on the phone itself (to stop you trying out your neighbour's phone details!) and then having my icon layout, my bookmarks etc. would be fabulous ... but is it enough?

    Using your iPhone/iPad to provide a multi-touch screen for your desktop machine could also be cool ... but doesn't require NFC, it could be done with wifi or bluetooth.

  5. Pavlov's obedient mutt

    Your cloud awaits sir

    Don't forget, Steve Jobs thinks the Cloud Is The Future...

    I bet he has a trick up his sleeve whereby NFC will be an enabler to make Cloud Access painless and easy

    1. Daniel 1

      "Steve Jobs thinks the Cloud Is The Future"

      Does he? When did he say that?*

      Steve Jobs' vision seems to be what it always was; which involves selling a hardware device with some pre-installed software on it.

      Maybe by focusing on how much more, the device can suck in and make use of, with each iteration, he's hit a sweet spot in consumer experience (and maybe Apple are having to provide some degree of on line service, just to join up the reasons for having the device in the first place) but its definitely about the device, at Cupertino, and not about the 'Cloud'. On the whole, 'The Cloud' isn't profitable - or relies on things like ads revenue - and that's not a Cupertino way of operating.

      Even iTunes was all about the iPod, and not about iTunes - regardless of much it ended up shaking up the music industry in the end.

      ---

      *"The Cloud" is actually the term promoted by Microsoft for on line services, and it certainly seems that, at Redmond these days, you either think "the Cloud Is The Future" or you're looking for a new job.

  6. David Webb
    Jobs Horns

    Correction

    A quick correction for you :

    "It will, no doubt, be N-Mark technology that Apple deploys, even if it means paying Nokia for the licence."

    Shouldn't that say:

    "It will, no doubt, be N-Mark technology that Apple deploys, they won't pay a licence to Nokia but will use the technology and then sue Nokia for patent infringement whilst claiming N-Mark as their own with patents they will produce soon"

    ?

  7. JaitcH
    Black Helicopters

    "that Apple has been lately so assiduously patenting," what more prior art?

    Parts of Europe but more particularly the Far East, such as Korea and Japan, have long used this technology.

    Jobs seems to think the U.S is the world's technology leader: this is patently stupid thinking. The U.S. lags so much of the world. Plus it has major, as in MAJOR, infrastructure weaknesses and no money.

    The sooner the U.S. kneecaps all these wanna be patent trolls, the better, so freeing up the creativity which is how the Far East got so far ahead.

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