Merry Christmas (or whatever you celebrate) and an NFC New Year

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Merry Christmas (or whatever you celebrate) and an NFC New Year

Our team over here at NFC Rumors want to take the opportunity to thank everyone who swings past the site and wish them a great holiday season. It has been our first year and we have grown massively during that time because of your support for what we do. Over this year we have met some really great people, had the opportunity to immerse ourselves in great innovation and have been supported by our visitors and the companies who have come to embody Near Field Communication. We love bringing you the latest NFC news, adding our own opinion and starting conversations about the opportunities and challenges that NFC brings with it.

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Thinaire gets Halls to cough up for NFC marketing campaign

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Thinaire gets Halls to cough up for NFC marketing campaign

NFC marketing firm Thinaire got the gig to help Halls media and planning agency, Horizon Media, to launch an NFC marketing campaign in Chicago. You’ll remember Thinaire, the firm that created a digital billboard in Times New Square. That particular billboard had NFC tags placed underneath that allowed consumers to interact with ads with their Android NFC phones as they passed by. Well, it’s a different month and now there is another campaign for Thinaire to get their teeth stuck into.

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Apple adds even more NFC patents to its chest for payments and retail

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Apple adds even more NFC patents to its chest for payments and retail transactions

Apple has a plethora of patents relating to NFC and today adds another couple to the mix. The iPhone 4S arrived sans NFC, but Apple continues to pick up near field communication patents that relate to payments and retail experiences. It is almost a foregone conclusion that Apple will enter the NFC arena this next year. In fact, we have been tipped by a trusted source that Apple will in fact launch an iPhone 5 with NFC, and that the only reason we didn’t see it this last year was due to manufacturing problems that had nothing to do with NFC. However, that’s not really news at this point. In the world of tech that increasingly relies on patents for income possibilities, Apple has just scooped more power for its NFC war chest.

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NFC stocks: Is it no NFC in the iPhone 4S hitting Apples stock price?

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Is no NFC and no LTE in the iPhone 4S hitting Apple’s stock price? Or was Apple’s stock artificially inflated by NFC stocks?

Apple stocks took a tumble today which may have partially been because the iPhone 4S is without NFC

A lot of people were disappointed with the iPhone 4S, and we can speculate that just from what we have seen happening out on the social networks. We can also speculate that people who are interested in NFC stocks may have quietly been buying Apple stock over the last few weeks and then dumped it on the news that Apple has not included NFC in the iPhone 4S. As far as investors were concerned, it was Tim Cook’s debut today and for the new CEO to inspire confidence in investors, he needed to show that the company could deliver a forward thinking product that probably incorporated NFC and LTE. However, Cook spent far less time on stage than Steve Jobs would have and Apple delivered a somewhat lack luster device after a three month lag in their standard release schedule.

NFC stocks are a hot topic for investors at the moment and if Apple has announced that the iPhone 4S would feature NFC it would have been natural to think that Apple would have pressed that advantage and would have delivered an NFC mobile wallet that would have added the massive NFC payment recurring revenue to Apple’s bottom line.

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Apple fails to deliver NFC in the iPhone 4S, iPhone 5 is a no show

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Apple fails to deliver NFC in iPhone 4s, iPhone 5 was a no show

Apple delivers a disappointing minor upgrade it called the iPhone 4S today, and that didn’t include any NFC functionality at all. Consumers didn’t get NFC in the iPhone 4S and as such, Apple has shown that it is falling behind the times. It isn’t that the iPhone 4S isn’t a great looking smartphone and it does have the best selection of apps of any operating system. However, with NFC marching forward and models already in the marketplace, the iPhone 5 without NFC doesn’t represent the creative and forward thinking advancement we have come to expect from Apple. Now Android, Microsoft and many other competitors, including Samsung, have the competitive edge over Apple in NFC. We wouldn’t be too shocked if this lack of support for the iPhone 5 didn’t tarnish Apple’s glossy, glossy image and begin a declining process that will see Apple fall from the enviable position it has now held for years.

The frustrating thing is that Apple has everything it needed to deploy a wonderful NFC experience. It could have used a secured version of iCloud as its provisioning service. It has worked on the iTravel and iCruise apps, and a tie-in with iTunes could have given Apple an already universal payment acceptance method that the company would just have had to add the NFC component. But it didn’t. The biggest feature announced in the iPhone 4S was the Siri integration, which is an impressive personal assistant feature. It allows users to ask their iPhones a question and then it responds. It also can set up meetings and take certain actions that a user requests. Whereas Siri is a truly impressive application that iOS 5 now comes with, we wonder if it is enough to hold Apple at the top for another year.

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Apple iPhone 5, hours to go to learn the fate of NFC

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Apple iPhone 5, hours to go to learn the fate of NFC

Here we are, just hours away from the Apple iPhone 5 announcement. In the early days of Apple iPhone 5 rumors we went chasing the rumors that could mean that Apple was planning to launch an NFC iPhone 5. We even made an infographic that showed how it made sense from a business perspective for Apple to go the route of NFC. However, as the months went on we noticed that Apple either had their supply chain tied down so much, or the horror alternative would be that Apple wouldn’t support NFC in the iPhone 5 after making consumers wait so long for a replacement for the iPhone 4. NFC has hit its swing, whether Apple supports NFC or not this time around. We have witnessed that Apple has applied for enough patents to own NFC outright. So on one hand, it wouldn’t make sense if the company didn’t support it. We wouldn’t be overly surprised if Apple has become so arrogant that it thought NFC was only happening when they said it is.

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Will the iPhone 5 have NFC? We will know October 4th

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Will the iPhone 5 have NFC? We will know October 4th

Apple will hold a press conference / media event on October 4th to announce its iPhone 5, but will the magical device bear NFC capabilities? We may not know the answer to that question yet, but at least we now know when we will have an answer. Well, according to AllThingsD that is, and we have no reason to think they are wrong. This media event / frenzy will be the first one presented by Apple’s new CEO, Tim Cook, and the eyes of the world will not only be on the iPhone 5, but Cook himself will no doubt be scrutinized to see whether he can actually fill the gaping whole left by Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs is a hard act to follow and we wish Tim Cook luck. He’s going to need it with the iPhone 5 launch event.

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PayPal NFC mobile wallet shaping up in Sweden with Accumulate

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PayPal gearing up for NFC mobile wallet, Accumulate wants run the security detail

If you want a clue about what PayPal is up to in regards to NFC, you need look no further than its new partnership with Swedish firm Accumulate. PayPal is working with Accumulate to add the firm’s security platform, “Mobile Everywhere”, for what Accumulate calls “coming mobile services.” The agreement in place between the two companies is at this time a Swedish-only affair and for Swedish consumers. In viewing what PayPal is planning for Sweden, we can ascertain what the company might have in mind for the rest of the globe when it comes to NFC payments and its NFC mobile wallet.

”The agreement is great news and we look forward to partnering with PayPal and to support the innovative mobile services based on our technology,” says Stefan Hultberg, CEO of Accumulate.

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NFC iPhone conjecture ongoing

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iPhone NFC conjecture ongoing, Apple could struggle if it passes on NFC

It isn’t going to be long until we know one way or the other whether the iPhone 5 has NFC (near field communications) technology built in. We already know that Apple have developed  a lot of apps to potentially use NFC inside and outside of payments, so a formalized NFC payments market isn’t required for the iPhone to have success using NFC. Day in, day out here at NFC Rumors we share uses for NFC that extend far beyond payments and it is hard to believe that Apple doesn’t realize this and want to capitalize on the capabilities that the Cupertino company could bring to the technology.

Rumors are circulating that the iPhone is going to be available on Sprint (the only non-Isis carrier in the United States) and that the screen is of the sub 4-inch variety. See the BGR photo below that shows BestBuy is expecting a Sprint iPhone next month. Yet of late the expectancy of NFC being included in the iPhone has been quiet with most assuming that the issue has been put to bed and the expectations have been set that Apple will not support NFC this time around. However more so, now more than ever the iPhone is facing increasing competition and the iPhone 4 is no longer competitive on specifications or features that are offered in Android and other handsets. With Nokia banding together with Microsoft, the competition is about to get more ferocious than ever. Apple could sue every single handset maker out there and it still wouldn’t dull the consumer demand for more convergence and higher specified phones one bit.

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588 million using NFC payments and services by 2015

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Research and Markets and ARChart predicts 588 million will be using NFC payments and services by 2015

Research and Markets have released their latest NFC study that looks at digital money and the convergence of contactless card and mobile payments. NFC is picking up pace and people are undoubtedly becoming more aware of the technology and certain aspects of how their lives can be impacted. Our last post indicated how ubiquitous NFC is becoming in the minds of the general public and how the benefits are finally starting to outweigh the security concerns. NFC, however, is still a nascent technology in terms of real world deployment, and which business models will finally prevail and where the gaps in the market still need some meta views of the current industry.

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Canadian NFC Samsung Galaxy S II LTE heading to Rogers this fall

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NFC Samsung Galaxy S II rocking LTE heading to Rogers Canada this fall

Oh Canada, Oh Canada you get a Rogers NFC Samsung Galaxy S II (we don’t think that rhymes but you get the point). Okay, well the Americans didn’t fare well with today’s Samsung announcements. Our hearts sank as we learned that Samsung was dealing out no NFC on any US network for the long awaited Samsung Galaxy S II variants. That said, until the machines have a tear down we won’t know that for sure since Samsung is rumored to be fitting NFC in an inactive state and then switching it on later when carriers ask them to. Will America get an NFC Samsung Galaxy S II? The chances are looking bleak today. Back to Canada and the Rogers NFC Samsung Galaxy S II though.

Samsung has finally started releasing the by now legendary and possibly aging NFC Samsung Galaxy S II to North America. AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint had their announcements earlier and Canada’s Rogers appears to have trumped them all by getting the NFC Samsung’s Galaxy S II version for their network which is in line with the news lately that suggests Rogers is deploying NFC payments. Canadians won’t get their hands on their version of the Samsung Galaxy S II until later in the fall, but we can at least know what’s on its way now.

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Samsung Droid Prime launching on Verizon Wireless exclusively in October (leaked)

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Samsung Droid Prime launching on Verizon Wireless exclusively in October

For months now we have been following the rumors about the Samsung Nexus Prime which is supposed to be Google’s next pure Android experience NFC smartphone that features Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich”. This last week, we reported that Verizon was passing on the legendary Samsung Galaxy S II and we are now starting to understand why. BGR, who first broke the Samsung Droid Prime story back in June and who has posted news about the device ever since, has reported that Verizon Wireless is launching the phone we have known as the Samsung Nexus Prime – and which we are now learning will be called the Samsung Droid Prime – in October. The information given is reported to be from a Verizon insider who suggested that “Verizon doesn’t think the Samsung GALAXY S II will be competitive with the iPhone 5 when it launches.”  The source didn’t want to be named for obvious reasons, but this latest rumor makes sense in not only giving a real competitor to the iPhone 4S of iPhone 5, but also in staying in front of AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint.

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NFC, Apple and PayPal, the perfect storm

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NFC, Apple and PayPal, the perfect storm, is the kind of thought that keeps Banks, credit card companies, Google and Isis up at night

It was suggested today that if Apple and PayPal got together for NFC payments, it could rip a hole in the banking subspace continuum. Even thoughts like these are blasphemous around the Google campus, because of the potential domination and disruptive force the two companies would create in their wake. Well, that and the fact that Google has opened up shop against both companies after being on friendly partnership with both. There hasn’t been such a potentially powerful partnership suggested since bread and butter, or salt and vinegar on chips. It seems such an obvious partnership, but it took an Australian named Rod Farmer, Director of Research and Strategy for Mobile Experience, at the AIIA in Sydney this morning to mutter such a concept in public. As the words left his mouth and hit the internet, one hundred thousand tech reporters around the globe realized it would be the “perfect storm for disruption” as Farmer put it, and immediately broke out into a cold sweat, and went and hid under the stairs.

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Apple, NFC, iPhone 5, iPad 3, rumors, blah, blah, and more blah

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Apple, NFC, iPhone 5, iPad 3, rumors, blah, blah, and more blah

Apple, NFC, iPad 3, iPhone 5…is it just us, or is it getting a little repetitive? Ever heard the phrase “there’s nothing to fear but fear itself?” We suggest it gets changed to “there’s nothing to Apple, but Apple itself” because at the end of the day all the speculation is just that, until we hear from Mr. Jobs. The frenzy field that emanates from Cupertino may block out the sun if it gets any more hyped, and the mastery of Apple is that it is generated because the company keeps quiet and plays dead until its ready to roll over and offer us a treat.

In a week where a bomber killed innocent people in Norway, the US is about to go broke, and Amy Winehouse passed away, we still found time for what seems to be a billion Apple rumors. Because that’s what’s important, right? Well, that and Rupert Murdoch getting a pie in his face because his media empire has been found to be sleazy. (Spoiler alert: Perhaps aside from the BBC and a few others, all mega media conglomerates are sleazy. It’s like gravity, it just is that way.)

We ourselves have written a myriad of articles on the business case for NFC in the iPad 3 and iPhone 5.

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Could Apple forgo NFC for Bluetooth 4.0?

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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.

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Qualcomm adds to NFC iPhone 5 doubts

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Qualcomm adds to NFC iPhone 5 doubts

Qualcomm adds doubt to an NFC iPhone 5 by telling MobileBeat 2011 delegates that products featuring its mobile processors and software will not be seen until late 2011 or early 2012

It looks as if there is an ever dwindling possibility for an NFC iPhone 5 today. Raj Talluri, vice president of product management for Qualcomm has been speaking about mobile payments today at the MobileBeat 2011 conference. Firstly it is important to understand what it is Qualcomm does in respect to mobile phones. Qualcomm specializes in taking individual components that are built into phones like cameras, mp3 players, WiFi chips and so on and then they build them all onto one piece of silicon. This allows for minimal space to be taken up inside of our mobile phones which allows them to be super thin and energy efficient.

Qualcomm had been pegged as the supplier Apple would probably use for NFC components for an NFC iPhone 5

Super efficient all-in-one chips that do not take up too much space sounds like music to Apple’s ears. Qualcomm has been working on mobile financial transactions and the hardware and software that is required to fit in our mobile phones. NFC is part of that equation and it has been rumored that Apple has turned to Qualcomm to help them develop their NFC hardware platform.

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Apple wins patent for a display integrating an NFC antenna

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Apple wins patent for a display integrating an NFC antenna

Today Apple won a patent that allows the company to integrate NFC antennas into displays. In the last few days, the patent office has awarded Apple 14 new patents but the [tooltip color="green" text="Near Field Communications"] NFC [/tooltip] subject matter caught our eye. The patent documentation illustrated the technology in an iMac, but the granted patent allows for a greater scope of Apple devices that have screens to make use of this technology. If you have followed Apple for any time you will know that many patents the company is granted disappear and never make it into production product lines. However, we feel we may well see this technology deployed.

The details surrounding the Apple NFC antenna patent

This isn’t a new line of thought for Apple and in fact, they have been filing NFC patents like accountants on crack for the last few years. In April 2010, the company filed an NFC patent that detailed controlling all manner of devices using an NFC-enabled iPhone that could communicate and control everything from a TV, Xbox 360 and the Apple TV remote. In this patent, we see illustrations of embedded NFC tags and antennas in the corner of a TV. The new patent builds upon that first patent by getting specific on the uses of NFC antennas in screens.

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NFC Phones roundup

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NFC Phones roundup

It has been an active few weeks of NFC Phones announced with even more rumors, and it is easy to forget what NFC smartphones we may actually have coming our way. Just a little over a month ago, the only NFC Phones that were actually for sale were the Google Nexus S in the US and the Samsung Tocco in the UK. Since then, we have seen the Nokia C7 / Astound released and we also learned it doesn’t have a secure element. So let’s look at the 14 NFC Phones that are available or could come our way in the not so distant future.

NFC Phones available today

The pickings are still slim for NFC phones that are available today, but the list is growing.

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Will Apple include NFC in the iPhone 5 and iPad 3?

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Will Apple include NFC in the iPhone 5 and iPad 3?

A couple of days ago we speculated that Apple may be including NFC in the iPhone 5 and iPad 3. The lack of credible, reliable rumors and evidence to support our leap of faith has bothered us ever since. For around a year now pundits have been speculating about whether Apple will be including NFC in the iPhone 5 and more recently in the iPad 3. For the second half of last year the press thought it was a certainty that Apple was launching an NFC iPhone 5, but early this year reports started circulating that Apple would not be supporting NFC until the iPhone 6. We wanted to look at all the rumors that have circulated regarding Apple’s plans for NFC in the iPhone 5 and iPad 3 to see whether any clues that would allow us to get a clearer picture of whether or not an NFC iPhone 5 or NFC iPad 3 is on the cards.

Rumors that have suggested there will be no NFC in the iPhone 5 or iPad 3

Most Apple NFC iPhone 5 and NFC iPad 3 neigh sayers, have reported between March and May this year. The information has either come third party through Apple or large scale manufacturing suppliers. If this is misinformation, it has worked. Many industry people now think there will be no NFC iPhone 5 until next year. The NFC iPad 3 rumors are too new, but it is presumable that if the iPhone 5 doesn’t get NFC nor would the iPad 3 if indeed it is due to be released at the same time. We have tracked the main reports that suggest that the iPhone 5 and iPad 3 will not have NFC and they appear to emanate from just three sources.

Berstein Analysts: “Apple’s next iPhone, said to be called the 4S, will not have the mobile payment support through NFC (near field communication).” – May 16th, 2011

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iPad 3 and iPhone 5 ready for production in August, NFC?

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iPad 3 and iPhone 5 ready for production in August, could this mean an NFC iWallet is in the cards?

iPad 3 and iPhone 5 upstream suppliers are beginning to prepare materials to be ready for production to start in August. Another day, another set of Apple rumors start to circulate. There have been rumbles that Apple could release its iPad 3 this year, but the rumors have been vague at best. But now it appears that may be changing. At this time there is really no product other than the Samsung Galaxy Tab that even comes close to Apple’s current iPad 2 offering, which makes it surprising that the company would launch a new iPad 3 slate only 6 months after the last.

Something is not right with Apple’s refresh schedule this year for the iPad 3 and iPhone 5

When we look at Apple’s refresh rate for any product this would probably be one of the shortest run cycles of any product in the company’s portfolio. Although stranger things have happened. After all no one expected the iPhone 4 to be in service for a year and three months before being usurped by the new iPhone 5, as Apple has traditionally refreshed in June or July of each year with its iPhone products.

So, assuming that the rumors are true – what would make Apple want to not receive its full ROI of a product that presumably cost a lot of time and money to develop? The only conclusion is that Apple needs to own a certain market, and that it will need the combined market saturation of both the iPhone 5 and iPad 3 to dominate whatever this mystery market is. It would also allow us to assume that the current iPhone or iPad does not have the capability to run with whatever Apple has in store. Hmmm, in store… iPhone 5, iPad 3, in store…

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