Apple is planning to use NFC on things other than Apple Pay

The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are the first iPhone to include NFC technology, something that Apple has used to let people pay for products with their mobile via Apple Pay. Now a report from The Information (paywall) suggests that the company is looking to expand that capability.

Apparently the company is eyeing security and public transport as things that could exploit NFC in some shape or form in the near future. This is good, because it  could means that iPhone users may be able to pay for London transport with their phones rather than their Oyster cards.

As part of this move Apple has reportedly had talks with HID Global and Cubic, companies that develop building keycards and transit payment systems, in order to try and integrate their systems with the iPhone.

At the moment, the only thing capable of utilising the iPhone 6’s NFC chip is Apple Pay, but Apple has promised that the feature could be rolled out to include other things in the future. How far that will go is unknown, but that fact that rumours are spreading that talks are taking place is a good sign that things could well be moving along at a decent pace. We’ll just have to wait and see whether iPhone users will be allowed to connect to accessories via NFC anytime soon.

Tom Pritchard