So, Passbook is set to come out in iOS 6. Neato, a place to store all your various club cards in one place, a service that already exists in the form of many other apps. Sure, it has some other tools, but really, it’s miles behind what other smartphone companies are doing. Where’s the NFC integration that’s been rumored for years? According to one report, Apple’s deliberately taking it slow.
According to the WSJ, Apple is taking a “wait and see” approach to mobile payments, something the company is famous for. After all, it took Apple a long time to rollout a 3G version of the iPhone, and we’re still waiting on an LTE one, Apple sometimes likes to wait for technology to mature before investing in it. Quote the WSJ:
Holding back in mobile payments was a deliberate strategy, the result of deep discussion last year. Some Apple engineers argued for a more-aggressive approach that would integrate payments more directly.
But Apple executives chose the go-slow approach for now.
So while some Android phones have NFC already, and Microsoft has the tech in the works, Apple is waiting until the tech is already ubiquitous before jumping on board. Which hopefully means when we do see NFC on an Apple device, it’ll be absolutely stellar.
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