Apple joins NFC Forum, will help shape future of wireless payments
Apple this week officially joined the NFC Forum, a nonprofit industry association that promotes the short-range wireless technology essential to secure mobile payment services, including Apple Pay.
Representing Apple on the NFC Forum's board of directors is Aon Mujtaba, the company's director of Wireless Systems Engineering. Mujtaba has been credited with multiple wireless patents owned by Apple.
"The top tier of NFC Forum membership, sponsor membership, entitles an organization to a seat on the NFC Forum board of directors, the association's governing body," NFC Forum director Paula Hunter said in a statement to NFC World. "We are delighted to welcome Apple to our board of directors as an NFC Forum sponsor member."
The NFC Forum was launched as a nonprofit industry association in 2004. It is a collaboration between chipmakers, communications companies, and consumer electronics makers.
Other sponsors of the NFC Forum include Google, Samsung, Intel, Sony, Broadcom, Visa, MasterCard, Nokia, and Qualcomm.
Though NFC technology has been around for years, interest in it, particularly for mobile payments, has surged since Apple adopted it in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. They were joined this year by the Apple Watch, all of which are capable of authorizing secure wireless transactions with Apple Pay.
Representing Apple on the NFC Forum's board of directors is Aon Mujtaba, the company's director of Wireless Systems Engineering. Mujtaba has been credited with multiple wireless patents owned by Apple.
"The top tier of NFC Forum membership, sponsor membership, entitles an organization to a seat on the NFC Forum board of directors, the association's governing body," NFC Forum director Paula Hunter said in a statement to NFC World. "We are delighted to welcome Apple to our board of directors as an NFC Forum sponsor member."
The NFC Forum was launched as a nonprofit industry association in 2004. It is a collaboration between chipmakers, communications companies, and consumer electronics makers.
Other sponsors of the NFC Forum include Google, Samsung, Intel, Sony, Broadcom, Visa, MasterCard, Nokia, and Qualcomm.
Though NFC technology has been around for years, interest in it, particularly for mobile payments, has surged since Apple adopted it in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. They were joined this year by the Apple Watch, all of which are capable of authorizing secure wireless transactions with Apple Pay.
Comments
Any time Apple can be seen as partnering with other companies, makes the introduction of new Apple technologies/standards seem less "walled garden" and more leading among peers.
It's happening. Slowly but it's happening. It's not as easy as you think it is as the cost to the business is high. Plus here in the US, places like restaurants will be slower as the systems in place are not even remotely capable to handle NFC. The entire OS system and the computers would have to be replaced. Not something that's cheap at all.
This and the (unrelated) support of USB-C are recent examples of Apple cooperating with industry partners on interoperability. It's a slight opening the "walled garden"... making it easier for people to enter the garden since it uses some technologies that exist outside the garden.
Just to remind everyone, check out http://Spychips.com and Aaron Russo's documentary movie: America: Freedom to Fascism: http://freedomtofascism.com
-- NFC is not much different from RFID! You have to be skeptical and question what Apple is doing here -- Orwellian Apple is something we do not need!
So, with Apple joining the NFC board, I will be surprised if we do not see all iPhones capable of Apple Pay when they release the new models this fall.
What I see happening, is the guts of the 5s will be removed from it's current shell and put into the 5c form factor, in doing this, I think it would be fairly easy for Apple to add an NFC chip. I see this for several reasons, I do recall the 5/5s metal with glass shell has been the most difficult form factor to produce, they have also invested in the 5c form factor, and, until they come up with something new next year, I'm sure they will continue to use it.
I see the new lineup being:
iPhone 6s
iPhone 6s
iPhone 6 (4.7" only) in two GB sizes
iPhone 5cs in one or two GB sizes (or some new name) - see above
no more 6 , if they kept selling both the 4.7" & 5.5" 6 & 6 that would complicate the lineup when they are trying to sell a new 5.5" iPhone.
NFC is a magnitude more power efficient than WiFi.
With the way ApplePay is designed, it's not possible to start a transaction even in close proximity. It requires your fingerprint or password to start the transaction.
You're paranoid for nothing.
"Apple [...] will help shape future of wireless payments"
Done.
Paranoid no, smart and watching the watchers and a thinking man always asking questions -- YES. You would be well-advised to do the same.
NFC is a magnitude more power efficient than WiFi.
With the way ApplePay is designed, it's not possible to start a transaction even in close proximity. It requires your fingerprint or password to start the transaction.
You're paranoid for nothing."
It's funny how they say "and a company called NXP Semiconductors". Which is actually the key company to develop NFC. NXPI is a Dutch company, a spin off from Philips Electronics (Dutch too).
NXPI is traded on the Nasdaq.
So, to not even name NXPI in this article as a sponsor is sad.
There is a difference between "I wish to pay by presence" vs "I wish to pay without presence"
Like, the "think of the jobs" people would be wanting us to use mobile phones to create a money-withdrawal ticket at an ATM, take the physical cash to a retailer and insert the exact amount in bills and change into a machine that puts cash directly into a safe and to properly count the money so they don't need to carry change. It would exist entirely to keep Brinks employees working, and the retailer would not have to pay the credit card commissions.
Why should the consumer do anything to save the retailer money? If the retailer does everything possible to cut their costs on the transaction side, it just makes it irritating to the shoppers when the only payment option is cash (often asian groceries and shopping at conventions) and the retailers own branded credit card.
The NFC component is what allows someone to pay by presence and not have to go to an ATM. "WiFi" is a huge pain in the ass, because you have to either have internet access (on your LTE-enabled device, which isn't available everywhere) and connect to the retailers WiFi access point, or you flip it around, and the Retailer and you have to be connected to the internet over WiFi or 3G/LTE, and a different radio has to be used, eg NFC or Bluetooth to pay.
So cut out all the annoying parts and use NFC to pay, which on an Apple device only requires the realtor to have internet access, therefor making it easier and faster to use than cash and the same speed as other NFC cards. Google's previous attempt at NFC and other ISP options are "secure element simulation cloud-hosted service" which require internet access on both ends of the transaction, which makes it harder to use than cash.
If WiFi was used, there is no way for the realtor to be able to identify the customers device from everyones elses devices in the store, thus making it more complicated than cash.
You only get people to use a new payment option by making it more convenient than cash. Anything that requires internet access on the device is not easier or convenient.
Think about all the 3G Radio and WiFi spoofing that goes on already. How hard to you think it would be to create a fake wireless access point in the store with the same name and skim off any payment activity?
No politics please!
These types of WiFi connections are inherently insecure. We're not talking about a 15 character password on a home system, which is very secure, and simple.
I thought that Apple would,s just go with the system they've been using in their stores, which I use when
Possible. But they decided that this was a better way to go. It's much more secure. and while it does require us to que up in a line, as always, for most places, we'd expect to do that anyway.
Oops, posted to the wrong article. ????
Oh no! Someone let out a
Trumpian......(Oops, forgot the 'no politics' rule).
LOL For someone that is so paranoid it's amazing how ignorant you are about NFC and WiFI that you would prefer the latter for sending and receiving secure payment information wireless. I'll stick with the one that creates a short magnetic loop measured in inches, thank you.
PS: Please put down the tinfoil for a moment and learn to quote a comment properly.
I think this is good news.
Any time Apple can be seen as partnering with other companies, makes the introduction of new Apple technologies/standards seem less "walled garden" and more leading among peers.
And what happened when Apple joined the Blu-ray association? Are we going to see a "NFC is a bag of hurt?" comment from Tim?
You know better than that.
Apple had no real stake in Blu-Ray, other than for its orofessional editing suite, which is a minor product line, in a way. Playing it would have slowed down the growth of its download business which was getting started.
But NFC has become something major for them.