New iPhone Prototypes Have Integrated NFC chips and Antenna 114
zacharye writes "Apple's next-generation iPhone will feature an integrated NFC chip according to a new report, suggesting the Cupertino, California-based company may soon make its entrance into the mobile payment space. A report from 9to5Mac states that an analysis of code from Apple's latest iOS software includes references to an integrated NFC chip and antenna."
Follow the leader (Score:2, Informative)
Whoa, don't tell me Apple is playing follow the leader with Google [android.com]. I thought Apple always thinks of everything first, and this is why they like to sue everybody.
Re:How you integrate also counts as innovation (Score:4, Informative)
An example is the iPod. The click wheel and master/slave method of managing music was, in the terminology of biology, an overwhelmingly successful adaptation.
Obviously you've never heard of WinAmp [wikipedia.org] or the Diamond Rio MP3 player, [guim.co.uk] both of which debuted about half a decade before the first iPod. Apple didn't innovate shit, they copied other people's designs then told you, 'hey, look at this awesome new thing we came up with!' and you got down on your knees like a good little sucker.
I think it's obvious that the grandparent was referring to hardware, portable mp3 players. Winamp is utterly irrelevant in this context. And he's not saying that Apple invented the mp3 player--just that they innovated within that (fairly small) market and then with those innovations, practically dominated it. Other mp3 players still existed and continued to be created, but interface-wise, they were poor in comparison.
I'm not sure what he means by master/slave music management. Maybe he means a separate app to manage music irrespective of files. Not knowing the history of iTunes, I'm not sure if it always abstracted files and folders away in favor of songs and albums, but that's also a feature that consumers have generally favored.
The Diamond Rio doesn't have a click-wheel. It has something closer to the older scroll-wheel. The click-wheel (using Apple's terminology for a capacitive scrolling wheel which also had 5 buttons built into the wheel) didn't show up until 2004. I can't find anything that comes very close to it in other portable mp3 players.
The click-wheel was really a turning point for usability, but it probably helped that the iPod had a screen capable of showing multiple menu options/songs. I mean, on that Rio you linked to, how much text even fits on that LCD?
The MP3 player market effectively ceased to exist.
I'm not even going to dignify that ignorant bullshit with a response (beyond calling it out as ignorant bullshit, of course).
Yeah, it was quite an exaggeration. There are still non-Apple mp3 players sold. But they don't get any press to speak of and I can find no indication that they sell particularly well. I've owned several (a Sansa being my favorite) but I tend to fall back to using my iPhone because I always have it with me anyway.
Re:What is NFC? (Score:4, Informative)
It's a very (very) short range RFID chip. It can read/respond to RFID tags like those found on credit cards ("swipe to pay"), and so can become a replacement for your credit cards or other bank cards. The idea is, one day, instead of carrying a wallet you'll just carry your phone and pay for everything that way.
It has other uses too, like using an RFID tag to trigger certain behaviors in a phone (eg: putting one behind the phone cradle in your car, which triggers bluetooth, opens navigation, turns vibration off, etc etc) but they're secondary as far as the general public is concerned.
Re:Follow the leader (Score:4, Informative)
Apple is going with a standard for a change (unlike Google's original implementation).
Google Wallet is an implementation of MasterCard's Paypass, which is a standardized variant of EMV. There's nothing non-standard about Google's implementation. They had to choose MasterCard Paypass, Visa Paywave or Discover Zip so that it would work on the already-deployed acceptance devices, but all three are basically interoperable and all are based on EMV standards. I'm sure Paypass was selected based on who was interested in partnering, though I don't actually know how that choice was made.
(Note: I work for Google, on technology related to Wallet. I also worked in the smart card and NFC industry for nearly 15 years before joining Google.)