It was one of the big questions left unanswered by Apple’s keynote. Introducing an NFC payments option is fantastic, but will that NFC radio be available for other uses, like “tap & share” or “tap & pair”?
The answer it would seem is “no”, at least for now. Following launch, the NFC radio in the iPhone 6 will only be made available to Apple Pay. This also means that competing services like Google Wallet will likely be blocked, but it’s still unclear if recently re-branded Softcard (former ISIS Wallet) will be allowed on the iPhone. Softcard was introduced by the carriers, and there’s no doubt they’re looking to leverage their own payment system on what’s sure to be one of the most popular phones of the year.
NFC is a fantastically versatile little radio capable of a variety of functions. On Windows Phone and Android it can be used to initiate file sharing between devices, control settings on the phone (I use stickers to toggle things like WiFi and Drive Modes), and it can take the place of RFID enabled cards in some cities which use the technology for public transit.
As Apple is just entering the mobile payment market, it’s no surprise they’d want to restrict access to the radio used. Security will be key in encouraging customers to use and trust this new service. Still, hopefully we see a little more flexibility out of Apple’s conservative hardware policies, giving iPhone owners more access to all of the fantastic accessories and services which already utilize this hardware.
(Via Cult of Mac)