Near Field communication Technology is getting attractive with every passing day.
Mark Hung, an analyst for Gartner, sees the growth in handsets exceeding 100 million in 2012 and the distribution of NFC-enabled phones is expected to increase more than five-fold, to at least 500 million phones by 2015, according to an Electronics Weekly article.
NFC is the technology that enables smartphones and other devices to establish a connection by touching them together or coming within close proximity.
Even Apple couldn’t resist the beauty of this technology and is working on Launching the new iPhone with the NFC support.
So get ready to buy products and share files through near field communication in Apple phones.
The iPhone 4S did not have NFC, but there are higher chances of its successor having it. iPhone owners would be able to swap and share files between different devices, reducing the need to synchronize through iTunes.
Google has already adopted the Technology and is also getting comfortable with it. While it may seem Apple is late to the game, Jim Peters, chief technology officer of air transport technology company SITA says, “Apple just thinks about how they can make NFC really easy for the user, and then they figure out how to monetise it. They don’t think about how to monetise NFC and then tell the user what they can have.”
NFC is the next big thing because of its success as a starting point to interaction of digital world with the physical world. It has the ability to enable mobile payments merely by swiping your smartphone past a merchant's NFC-equipped reader at the point of checkout.
Mobile operators and financial institutions are seeing increasing demands for NFC for mobile wallets.
But NFC can do much more. It can potentially transform the way we interact with physical objects, shop, save, Play games, and interact on social media.
Facebook, LinkedIn , Foursquare, and other social networking sites are likely to use or are already using NFC technology in the realm of location-based services.
Users could "friend" people on Facebook or share personal content by tapping each other's NFC-enabled phones together.
Instead of downloading an application on a mobile device to "like" something on Facebook or "check in" on Foursquare, mobile users will be able to tap their phones on a NFC tag wherever they are to like the product or check-in.
Foursquare has already rolled out this technology to some degree. Foursquare on the Symbian operating system for Nokia smartphones is NFC-enabled and allows for quick check-ins by tapping the phone to a NFC tag where available.
NFC is a more convenient way of interacting with objects and brands.
Mobile users could soon be able to tap on a product that has a NFC tag on it with their NFC-enabled phones while inside a store and receive information instantly about the product.
The retailer can also treat the NFC-enabled mobile device as a loyalty card, offering the consumer deals.
The best way to describe NFC is as if it's a physical 'cookie' for the real world," Hung said. "You know cookies keeps track of where you go online, you leave a footprint, you can be tracked. NFC allows merchants to see a physical cookie in the real world. It can identify who you are, what your interests are based on where you go. It provides an incentive for a retailer when you check in at a physical store because it lets them know a little bit about you so that they can better target your interests."
The Pre-EVT (Engineering Verification Testing) for iPhone 5,1 and iPhone 5,2 prototypes by 9to5Mac suggest that NFC chips and an antenna will be built into this year's iPhone.
If true, it means Apple would finally jump onto the mobile payments bandwagon, allowing its users to purchase goods and services directly through their smartphones.
Google is already experimenting with the technology with its Google Wallet, a mobile e-wallet that allows users to store credit card information on an NFC-enabled device through its own Android platform. Apple’s iPhone on the other hand is expected to effectively bypass Visa, MasterCard, and American Express to make payments.
Apple’s NFC rumor also comes on top of the company's launch of Passbook, a feature slated for iOS 6, is a card-like interface that stores users' personal items like electronic versions of receipts, tickets, boarding passes, and other information from merchants.
Peters also believes that Apple will incorporate NFC into Passbook.
"There is a lot of debate that NFC will never take off because of all the arguments," Peters told 9to5Mac. "But you need to get ready, this is coming. This is going to happen. By the end of the year the majority of smartphones that you go and buy will have NFC on them. If in October the next iPhone comes out and it has NFC on it, it's game over."
Apple could also hook up with an existing mobile payment service like CitiBank's PayPass or even handle payments on its own through all the credit cards already stored through iTunes, suggests 9to5Mac.
He also believes that the 2012 iPhone with NFC to dominate e-tickets.
In one example provided by Apple, if a user might have their boarding pass saved with Passbook, and if the boarding gate for their flight changes, the ticket would be updated to reflect this and the user would be sent a notification.
Apple’s iPhone is sleek, timeless and modern as it is but NFC will certainly make the device more beautiful.
