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Apple iPhone 5s

 

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still no nfc

whocares

Sep 10, 2013, 3:42 PM
Guess we'll have to wait until next year for a technology that's been around for years 🙄
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Rich Brome

Sep 10, 2013, 4:17 PM
That is annoying for standards buffs, but Apple has gone their own way on many such technologies. They haven't gone the standards route with micro-USB, DLNA, Miracast, or much of anything, really.

I don't expect them to adopt NFC any time soon. They have their own ways to do everything NFC does, and owning a good chunk of the payments pie is too tempting for Apple to not try to do (and own, and take a cut of) their own solution.
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Zpike

Sep 10, 2013, 8:24 PM
It's not really surprising. 1What you say has always been true of Apple, even as far back as a three button mouse or a cd-rom drive with a physical eject button on it; and even more recently shunning Flash and USB on their mobile devices. They have always refused to adopt common sense features to the detriment of their users. The fact that they have a rabid user base that refuses to acknowledge this idiocy is what really puzzles me.

As far as what you said about their having alternate means to accomplish everything NFC does, that doesn't really hold up. If you could simply write software without needing the physical NFC chip, nobody in their right mind would be paying to add an NFC chip to their devices. The truth of the matter is that A...
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Rich Brome

Sep 10, 2013, 8:28 PM
Apple thinks they have a solution better than NFC in the form of Bluetooth 4.0 LE Beacons (the iBeacon feature in iOS 7).

Recommended reading:

http://gigaom.com/2013/09/10/with-ibeacon-apple-is-g ... »

https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/beacon »
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Zpike

Sep 10, 2013, 9:15 PM
That was interesting reading, but of note is the fact that the latest Android devices already have bluetooth 4.0. Also, Android 4.3 incorporates BLE support into the operating system. So, it's not like Apple is competing in a separate ecosystem as you seem to have suggested. Anyone on Android 4.3 or greater will have the same access.

But BLE has some serious limitations when it comes to bandwidth that NFC doesn't have. I know that Apple pretends to overcome this with some Wifi and Bluetooth trickery, but let's be honest. PDA phones from more than 10 years ago were capable of the same trickery (and Android devices of today certainly are). It's not like they're bringing anything innovative to the table on that front.

The article claime...
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Rich Brome

Sep 10, 2013, 9:52 PM
I love NFC and I'd much rather Apple embrace NFC and other industry standards.

I'm just showing you Apple's point of view.

A few clarifications:

1. NFC doesn't actually have that much bandwidth. It's mostly used for very small data transfers. In the case of something like Samsung's S-Beam, NFC is just used to do the pairing; the actual data transfer takes place over Bluetooth HS / Wi-Fi Direct.

2. NFC isn't much easier. AirPlay and AirDrop are almost as easy as NFC for pairing devices to stream media or transfer files. For payments, have you tried Google Wallet? There's plenty of set-up. Apple could make that much, much easier with everything they have in place now.

3. Yes Android phones will have their own Bluetooth LE Beacon...
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Zpike

Sep 13, 2013, 9:56 AM
Sorry, I was going to respond the other night when we were having this discussion, but I kept having trouble with the website and only just now got back to it.

>>NFC doesn't actually have that much bandwidth. It's mostly used for very small data transfers. In the case of something like Samsung's S-Beam, NFC is just used to do the pairing; the actual data transfer takes place over Bluetooth HS / Wi-Fi Direct.

I honestly didn't know that there was a handoff to bluetooth or wifi. I thought that NFC handled the data transfer as well. Thanks for clarifying that.

>>For payments, have you tried Google Wallet?

I know that many people are embracing this, but this is the one application of NFC I want nothing to do with. I don't think I wi...
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Doom Wolf

Oct 23, 2013, 10:37 AM
iBacon 🤤
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Zpike

Oct 29, 2013, 9:52 PM
If Apple ever patents bacon, I'm leaving the country.
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Doom Wolf

Nov 2, 2013, 2:30 PM
Don't be surprised if they do, they're suing everyone for "patent infringement". That greedy Apple!
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Zpike

Nov 7, 2013, 1:06 PM
And you know what the best kind of bacon is? Applewood. I think I see a lawsuit already.
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Nixoncarmichael

Dec 4, 2013, 12:33 PM
Not to stick up for Apple, but who really cares about NFC? Seriously. What do you want to be able to do with it on an iPhone that you can't now? Apple brought out their little airdrop deal, which essentially does the same kind of thing.

Additionally, if you're looking for NFC for mobile payments, if you have AT&T and then you're in luck. AT&T now makes SIM cards that have NFC capabilities built into it. So, if you get an NFC SIM from AT&T, put it in your phone and sign up for their mobile wallet thing (which is free) then you've got NFC payments on your device. Like I mentioned, I'm not one to stick up for Apple on a lot of things but NFC is just a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, and when I hear people squawking about NFC, I...
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