It must have been 3 years
that therumor of the arrival of NFCon the iPhone came back
every year and this time it was the right one. Apple announced it
officially during last Tuesday's conference: the iPhone and the 6
Plus are the first two machines to integrate a so-called “NFC” chip. This one
allows the machine to communicate with small labels, tags,
without them needing to be powered.
NFC was presented in a very specific context, that of payment "Apple
Pay" that Apple is preparing to deploy with several financial partners,
United States first, then Europe next year.
But NFC is not for users of competing machines, under
Android for example, who will say the opposite, this may haveGOOD
other uses. Will we see this on the iPhone 6 / 6 Plus?
To give an example of the use of these NFC tags, which are very inexpensive
sinceon
find them for less than a euro each, imagine that it is possible to
program to deliver information to a smartphone. That
maybe ainternet address, a contact sheet or even the
triggering an action or applicationon the
phone: switching to night mode, launching the GPS application, etc.
Other uses can be cited such as NFC stickers placed at stops
public transport allowing access to the timetable of the next bus, the
triggering file transfer between two machines, and cases
of uses are extremely varied... In short, it is the QR code, but
Really usable version!
Morality, once we have these tags, we put one stuck in the bedside and
when approaching the smartphone, it switches to night mode, one in the car
(some media even directly integrate an NFC tag) and presto, the GPS app is
launches, one in the entrance and the Weather app launches.
Also read:
- The
connected home of our dreams thanks to NFC in an Apple patent, et - Brevet
Apple: Gifts of apps, videos or music transferred via connection
NFC
But for this, it is necessaryon the one hand that the chip allows reading
and tag programming. It seems that the chip integrated into
l’iPhone 6/ 6+ait
this ability.
And that's not all, it is also necessary thatapplications
specific are developed, allowing recognition,
dialogue and activation of actions. For this, it is necessary that directives of
programming are available to editors.
On this point, it appears that iOS 8, which will be released on Wednesday,does not integrate
not (yet?) this type of possibility. No access to the NFC chip is
documented.
Two explanations are possible: the first is that Apple has planned this
type of use, but did not integrate it into iOS 8 so as not to reveal the arrival of the
NFC when Beta versions are released. In this case, NFC support could
arrive a little later.
Second possibility, Apple does not plan in the short term to open the
possibility for third-party developers to have access to NFC information.
This would be regrettable and we can hope that it is only a question of
time. So for the fingerprint recognition interface
Touch Id, which appeared last year, it is notthat this
year with iOS 8 that developers can make use of it. In this
case we could hopeNFC support in iOS
9.
In the meantime, theWatch d’Applesera
also released, it also includes NFC support for payment
but Apple also mentioned its use to “open your hotel door”. A
use which requires opening up the possibilities offered beyond the
financial transactions.
In any case, although it is excellent news to finally see
arrive NFC on the iPhone, it would beregrettable to restrict the
possibilities offeredby an interface allowing interaction
the phone with the physical space that surrounds it.
Tim, The sooner the better!
i-nfo.fr - Official iPhon.fr app
By : Keleops AG
founder of the site. Computer engineer and Internet specialist where he has held various positions of responsibility, Laurent has been passionate about mobility since the arrival of "PDAs" in the 90s. Journalist for 4 years for the magazine Team Palmtops (Posse Presse) and author of several books on the iPad published by Pearson.
