No NFC in the iPhone 4S

I am currently working on a blog about NFC* in mobile marketing. Then Apple announced the iPhone 4S without NFC capability, which puts everything into a new perspective. Now it seems way more important to talk about what this means for the industry. The blog on NFC in mobile marketing will be published next week instead.

Seldom has one company’s decision meant so much for an industry as Apple’s decision not to support NFC in the new iPhone. So far the biggest short-term supporters of NFC have been Google with various initiatives. Several Nokia, Samsung and RIM devices are already available in the market. Apple, however, is extremely important, as the iPhone is a mass-market device with a large proportion of early adopters eager to try new things.

I believe that the consequences of the decision are:
* Many retailers will delay decisions to upgrade PoS systems for NFC for at least a year
* PoS payment solution suppliers such as Verifone are less likely to invest in pilot programs
* Other device manufacturers such as HTC and LG may delay embedding NFC chips as they wait for Apple
* Marketers are less likely to support mobile marketing campaigns leveraging NFC as most of them have an iPhone

Another consequence we will see is a slower transition to NFC compared to what many analysts and industry supporters expected. As of now, no one to my knowledge has gone as far as pronouncing NFC a dead standard- yet but I bet we will see some industry comments soon.

Was it unexpected or shocking news from Apple? Not really but considering the relative low implementation cost for Apple many people thought they would include NFC despite previous comments but maybe with some kind of restrictive use through Apple.

What does it mean for mobile marketing and payments? It will primarily delay the implementation of loyalty cards and mobile payment systems using NFC for about a year but in the long term we are still confident that Apple and others will support and implement NFC.

Despite this we will update you on future exciting opportunities with NFC in next weeks blog. Because we are still very excited about the long-term prospects.

* Note: For more about NFC read our previous blog post on http://www.mobilemarketinguniverse.com/?p=326