NFC STILL HAS A WAYS TO GO
Infrastructure to get the most out of it must be built
NEW YORK In ads comparing its Galaxy S III with the iPhone 5, Samsung is claiming superiority for features its flagship handset has that Apple’s smartphone lacks. NFC is on the list.
Never mind that very few people even know what NFC means in this context — hint: It has nothing to do with the National Football Conference of the NFL — much less whether they’ll benefit by having it, or somehow miss the boat because of its absence.
NFC stands for Near Field Communication, and it is “short-range” wireless technology that can be applied in various ways. For example, folks with NFC phones can tap similarly equipped devices to exchange contact information, music or other files. NFC can be used to communicate with “smart tags” that may appear on product posters. And it can be used to help you buy stuff in stores just by tapping your phone.
The technology has been mostly under the radar for nearly a decade but has been getting a little bit more notice lately because of the high-profile companies lending it support.
Google is embracing NFC as a key technology component in the Google Wallet mobile payment initiative for which the search giant is trying to drum up enthusiasm, so far with little to show for it. The same goes for the nascent Isis Mobile Wallet, whose founders are AT&T, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless.
The online payment space is complex and fragmented. Getting people to change behavior and pay with phones, instead of the plastic credit cards they’ve used for years, is daunting. Even if they’re willing to pay by phone, technology alternatives exist that don’t involve NFC.
Still, more high-visibility devices are embedding NFC chips. It’s true of the Galaxy S III and other Android phones and tablets, from the likes of HTC, LG and Motorola. NFC is also turning up in some Windows Phones and BlackBerrys.
Where you won’t see it is in the iPhone 5, and judging by early iPhone 5 sales — 5 million last weekend — most consumers don’t give a hoot. Should they? The short answer depends on what NFC offers that you can’t do otherwise. On the surface, there doesn’t appear to be much.
NFC, at least when it comes to mobile payments, poses a gigantic infrastructure problem. Only a few point-of-sale terminals can handle NFC, and merchants would have to devote time and money to change that. While they might do so, it’s equally plausible that they won’t. For its part, Apple is pushing the Passbook wallet app, still in its infancy. Apple says: “Passbook is the simplest way to get all of your passes organized in one easy-to-access place, and there are already lots of apps that support Passbook for things like movie tickets, Major League baseball, airline boarding passes and retail store loyalty cards.”
Oren Betzaleli, an executive vice president at Retalix, an Israeli company that provides software and services for the retail industry, estimates that wide deployment of NFC infrastructure is four to five years away. Some of his customers have no interest in ever deploying the technology. “One of the questions retailers are asking themselves is, how soon will commodity phones get NFC? I think the answer is not very soon,” Betzaleli says.
Tech industry analyst Ben Bajarin of Creative Strategies says NFC is “irrelevant” for the masses: “Many common-use cases with NFC can be done with an Internet connection and Wi-Fi,” he says. “NFC is still a solution in search of a problem.”
That’s not to say there aren’t some clever and convenient things you can do with NFC. The improved Android Beam feature on Google’s Jelly Bean flavor of the Android mobile operating system lets you share pictures and YouTube videos by touching two NFC-capable phones back-to-back. What’s on your screen will be beamed to the other phone.
Some third-party apps have integrated Android Beam. BBC News for Android lets you instantly share a story by tapping, Foursquare lets you share restaurant information, and Shazam lets you share music and TV tags. The similar S Beam feature on Samsung devices lets you exchange a 40-megabyte file with another Samsung phone in less than 10 seconds.
Samsung will also soon start selling a Bluetooth wireless headset that can be paired with a phone via NFC just by tapping the two devices.
NFC Forum director Debbie Arnold says the companies that are members of the organization represent more than 70% of the global market for smartphones. “That says a lot,” she maintains.
But what really speaks volumes is that fact that Apple, at least for now, is giving NFC the cold shoulder.