Could Apple forgo NFC for Bluetooth 4.0?

The lack of credible NFC rumors for the upcoming iPhone 5 has got some folks wondering what Apple has planned for payments, and with the addition of Bluetooth 4.0 in recent products the rumor mill is starting to stir. Apple has amassed a crazy amount of NFC patents relating to applications and hardware that would support everything from payments to information sharing and security. However, recent rumors suggest that Apple maybe looking to Bluetooth 4 for its contactless needs. Apple joined the board of the Bluetooth special interest group less than three months ago and has already embraced Bluetooth 4.0 in the 2011 Macbook Air & Mac Mini. Speculators have suggested that this adoption of Bluetooth 4.0 in core products is in readiness for the iPhone 5 and iPad 3, and could indicate a move away from NFC altogether. Many aspects of Bluetooth 4.0 do fit with Apple’s model, although the expected wide spread acceptance as NFC as a mobile payment protocol could mean that future iOS products get both technologies.

What is Bluetooth 4.0 and does it offer any benefit over NFC?

Apple loves energy efficiency, and a core feature of Bluetooth 4.0 is its “Bluetooth Low Energy” or BLE technology. BLE allows Bluetooth 4.0 devices to communicate at around half the peak power consumption of the classic standard Bluetooth. In fact Bluetooth 4.0 standard was designed for small devices powered by wee little coin-cell batteries. However, the downside of that power savings found in BLE directly corresponds to to the extension of battery power as Bluetooth 4.0′s data rate is ten percent of the Bluetooth 2.1 standard we have grown to know and love over the last few years. Bluetooth 4.0 offers the possibility to switch between BLE low or classic high power modes, which would mean using both Bluetooth 4.0 and either Bluetooth 2.1 or 3.0. Other features of Bluetooth 4.0 include a much longer range which can operate up to 200m and supports 128-bit AES with Counter Mode CBC-MAC and application layer user defined security. The standard also boasts a 6ms latency which which improves on the 100ms for Classic Bluetooth. The team over at ITProPortal reports that Apple may not embrace NFC and will instead push the Bluetooth 4.0 standard.

Why would Apple promote the Bluetooth 4.0 standard over NFC?

The rumors may be true  that Apple is intending to set aside NFC for Bluetooth 4.0, but it doesn’t make sense as there are core differences between the two technologies. NFC works great with passive tags which allows calls to action to be placed in any product, item or signage. Bluetooth 4.0, however, would require active tags that need a power source, even if that power source happens to be a coin sized battery cell. Trusted service managers are gearing up with the necessary support for NFC at this time and using an unproven standard for communications may prove to expensive to support. Add to that, the fact that POS terminal providers are already selling NFC contactless terminals that do not support Bluetooth 4.0 and the case of NFC being dumped for Bluetooth 4.0 looks less likely. What is more likely is that future iOS and other Apple devices will come with support for both technologies that plays to the key strengths of each. It’s an interesting rumor that Bluetooth 4.0 could be replacing NFC in the next iPhone, but we aren’t buying it.