By: Kooorrg

Kooorrg — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:04:23 +0000

The Register (a great website IMHO) has always been kind of cold toward anything smartcard-related so I’m not surprised. The example with the Oyster Card application running on the iPhone nicely demonstrates their ignorance of the technical issues. But we should admit that NFC has been quite long in the making, and some of their comments are quite accurate (i.e. the NFC technology works but is really difficult to deploy in the cold, real world).

I’m still not convinced: NFC would be very useful for some people (ex: people living in big cities with contactless transportation cards) but totally useless to anyone else. Mobile phone manufacturers deal with this issue by releasing a slew of models every year, with NFC included in only a few of them. Apple cannot do that: either everyone gets it or no one does.

Now I’m thinking, what up with PayPass in the US these days? Could this provide some kind of a killer app?

By: Thomas Vilarinho

Thomas Vilarinho — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:22:24 +0000

I also thought that the article in The Register sub-estimated the current status of NFC. It is not a risk shot for Apple, due to some of the reasons mentioned there: the popularity of iproducts, the power of apple and its presence in most of part of the chain (offering API, distribution and payment channels and being responsible for the security).

In fact when reading the article I got more and more convinced that Apple can possibly add the NFC in their devices and spread its usage with some great applications.

I am curious to see an official statement about the topic.

Comments on: We are the cherry on the NFC cake

By: Kooorrg

By: Thomas Vilarinho