Rumor: NFC a no go for iPhone 5 (4S)

If you’re still holding out hope that the next iPhone will have Near Field Communication (NFC) capabilities, we hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it looks like it’s not going to happen.

Actually, it has looked that way for a couple of months now. But, according to yet another analyst, and a report from  BusinessInsider, it’s pretty much all but certain at this point — the iPhone 5 (4S) will not have NFC.

The news isn’t exactly new per se. We’ve been hearing rumors time after time about NFC not being in the iPhone 5 (4S), but that hasn’t stopped others from still claiming their sources say it’s a distinct possibility.

A quick note on NFC

We often get emails asking us about NFC, and what it does, so here’s the short answer: it’s a technology that lets you make wireless financial payments at stores by being in relative proximity to some kind of base station. Realistically it could be used for a number of short-range (4cm or less) communications between devices.

As you can see from the patent artwork above, Apple’s clearly been working on NFC integration into their lineup, but that doesn’t mean we’ll be seeing it any time soon.  Many people in the industry have been saying that the iPhone 5 won’t be getting NFC for a while now.

Article Via BusinessInsider

Joshua is the Content Marketing Manager at BuySellAds. He’s also the founder of Macgasm.net. And since all that doesn’t quite give him enough content to wrangle, he’s also a technology journalist in his spare time, with bylines at PCWorld, Macworld and TechHive.