iPhone HD – built for NFC?

There’s an awful lot of blog-based kerfuffle about leaked iPhone images today. Those great friends Engadget and Gizmodo managed to trump each other within the week – and Gizmodo emerged with the lost device in hand (after parting with hard cash, allegedly).

Here’s what they’ve got….

Assuming this is real, key additions to the ‘iPhone HD’ include:

• Front-facing camera
• Higher quality back camera with a flash
• Micro SIM card (like the upcoming iPad 3G)
• Higher-res display
• Split volume buttons

The body of the handset is less curved and more Macbook-like than the previous model. I like the look, but what’s more interesting are the materials used. Gizmodo reckon that the back of the device is now made of glass or ceramic material, which would enable a stronger cell signal, but also potentially allow for an RFID signal to be ‘read’ or transmitted more effectively across the device.

So NFC (short-range RFID in devices) may not happen for the June release, but Apple aren’t known for thinking short-term. They have been working on several different prototypes, and submitted patents using RFID for authentication and service discovery.

This would also open up a whole new world of possibility around payments and access. The mobile operators, banks and ticketing providers have been testing NFC on mobile for years now – building a business case as we move (very) slowly towards a higher adoption rate of NFC within mobile handsets. Currently only two NFC enabled handsets are available on the UK market, both Nokia, both rubbish.

NFC in Apple devices will prove to be the tipping point – driving everyday use of NFC and RFID into the lives of many consumers.

Patently Apple also recently featured an Apple patent that links iTunes to ticketing at events through NFC. Like mobile 2D barcodes, this will require new reading hardware at the point of sale or redemption, but this adds up. There is a sense of inevitability that NFC hardware will eventually permeate retail outlets to allow payment. Contactless payment is now possible at a range of retailers in the UK, and Barclaycard are leading the push with adoption of this technology through their Contactless payment offering.. How long before we can do this on the iPhone?

There have already been some interim RFID implementations for iPhone – check out Wireless Dynamics’ iCarte device here and the Touch project’s experiment below.

iPhone RFID: object-based media from timo on Vimeo.