Major Mobile Move: Nokia To Ship Phones With NFC
Written by Evan SchumanArguably the biggest stumbling block for the acceptance of any of the mobile-device-to-barcode/tag efforts (Near-Field Communication [NFC], 2D barcodes, Microsoft’s Tag Reader) has been the shortage of any phone manufacturers shipping units with any of these capabilities natively. Nokia has now become the first manufacturer to agree to include NFC chips in its phones, as of next year.
A report in PaymentsSource has Nokia saying that the phones will support the Single Wire Protocol and MicroSD cards. “With the Single Wire Protocol, a wire connects the NFC chip to a mobile phone’s SIM card, which is used to identify a subscriber on the carrier’s network. MicroSD is a memory card used in mobile phones and digital cameras,” the piece said. Nokia has been using the chipped-phones in some aggressive trials in India, but shipping all phones with it is a key move. The story also pointed to an unmet expectation that Apple might have been the first to ship NFC-ready phones. “Many observers had speculated Apple’s new iPhone would contain an NFC chip, but that was not the case when it was revealed June 7. It was a mild surprise because Apple had been filing patents for different NFC uses, including using an NFC-enabled phone to interact with an ATM.”