iPhone 5 to Feature Near-Field Communications?

By Vincent Funaro, Christian Post Reporter Monday, June 25, 2012

NFC (near-field-communications) chips will be built into the next generation of iPhones, according to a report from 9to5Mac.

The site recently analyzed PreEVT iPhone 5,1 and 5,2 prototypes codenamed N41AP and N42APand that lead to its discovery of the device featuring a 1136x640 display and an NFC chip.

The Near Field Communications controllers will be directly connected to the power management unit, according to the site.

This shows that Apple is ready to compete with other companies such as Google, who already has launched its NFC powered Google Wallet electronic payment service.

Experts have also weighed in on the feature being added to the wildly successful smartphone.

"Opinion is that Apple is going to incorporate NFC into Passbook. Apple just thinks about how they can make it really easy for the user, and then they figure out how to monetize it," said Jim Peters CTO of SITA.

Apple demoed the new Passbook application at this year's WWDC that allows users to manage boarding passes, movie tickets, store cards, and other passes that have QR codes barcodes, or visual codes.

Peters feels that Apple plans to adjust people to using this new Passbook application and then implement NFC into it, allowing the users to make purchases on credit and debit cards.

"There aren't many transactions in it yet, but I think that's how Apple is going to sneak up on the industry," said Peters about Passbook. "They are going to get people used to using it and then all of sudden they will allow credit cards to be used in there, on the next iPhone which will include NFC."

The iPhone 4S was rumored to have NFC, but ended up launching without it.

Apple is expected to unveil the next-generation iPhone in the fall.