Next gen iPhone won’t feature NFC support

There's always been immense speculation surrounding the next generation iPhone - will it feature that or the other, will it have a bigger display, will it have a better camera, etc. And now that the iPad 2 is out, we're actually seeing some of the hardware to power the next iPhone too.

The Independent claims that the next iPhone won't have an NFC chip contrary to initial rumors. NFC stands for Near Field Communication, which basically enables your device to make really-short distance transactions just by waving it in front of a NFC reader.

The transactions can be various types - from paying your bus fair, through buying a snack at McDonalds to even checking in in Foursquare. It's all possible thanks to the NFC technology and when you combined it with a readily programmable NFC chip such as the one in a smartphone, it has the potential to revolutionize how we make those microtransactions in our daily lives.

The reason for the lack of NFC in the next iPhone seems to be that Apple are concerned that there is no clear standard for NFC across the industry. Another rumor suggests Apple is in the process of making its own NFC-driven technology. This way or the other, NFC is not coming to the iPhone 5.

This cannot be confirmed, though, so take it with a pinch of salt.

We guess more and more information will surface on the next-gen iPhone as time passes. Only three months stand between the rumors and the unveiling of the next-gen iDevice, so stay tuned.

Source