Now that the iPhone 5 is finally out, speculations regarding whether the new model would support the latest “in” thing – NFC have been laid to rest. The answer is a resounding no. In an interview with AllThingsD soon after the launch event, Apple’s VP Of Marketing Paul Schiller explained why.
Schiller believes that the iPhone 5 already features most of the functionality that NFC would have bought to the table. He referred to new Apple Passbook feature that would allow users to use the device as a digital wallet. Passbook would allow users to use the device as a storage center for digital coupons, event tickets and even flight tickets thereby negating the need for including NFC – which according to Apple, does pretty much the same as of today.
While Schiller did not mention it, another reason why Apple did not opt for NFC this time around was the fact that the NFC chip could prove to be a battery hog. Integrating a feature that is going to be sparingly used and it ending up affecting the battery life isn’t exactly the way Apple wants people to remember the iPhone 5.
All said, it is pertinent to note that almost all of the iPhone 5’s competitors do come with NFC. This also means that iPhone users would not be able to use Google Wallet and the under development ISIS mobile payment system. But then, the key word here is “under development”. It might not be until the next iPhone launch that ISIS would see the light of the day. In all, we do not think many users would severely miss the NFC functionality unless under certain circumstances.
Another thing that Phil Schiller clarified was the fact that the just introduced replacement to the 30 pin connector would stay around for a long time to come. Apple was until now using the aforementioned 30 pin connector across all of its mobile devices line up. The connector which took up lots of space has now been replaced by this new proprietary connector called “Lightning”. Like the 30 pin connector, which had been around since 2003, the Lightning connector will continue to remain as the Apple standard connector for a long long time.
Apple has obviously decided against joining the crowd and use the much more common micro USB standard – just to remain different.
