Report: New iPhone Could Have NFC Solution Included

The iPhone (News - Alert) 6 is just about a week away from being unveiled and there are lots of rumors about the kinds of features to be included in the newest iteration. One particular feature that hasn’t been talked about a lot is the apparent addition of software making it possible to do NFC payments. Platforms like Google (News - Alert) Wallet, Square and Isis have made NFC payments more popular and now it looks as if Apple is going to be joining the party.

More than that, Wired is reporting the company will be rolling out its own near field communications platform. This platform will also apparently be a hallmark of the new device when it is finally unveiled on September 9. To some industry insiders, the arrival of an Apple (News - Alert) NFC platform is long overdue. The Cupertino firm has been gathering credit card information for years, thanks to its online iTunes store. There are also millions of potential users for this platform, considering the sheer number of iOS device owners.

The rumblings of Apple’s NFC platform have been coming for years, considering the number of patents filed containing the technology. There has also been talk over the last few months about Apple and payment providers getting cozier. There have even been hires in Cupertino relating to “building a business around the hundreds of millions of credit cards it already has on file.” This is in connection to reports that Apple is going to have a solution relating to a so-called “secure element.”

This element in the phone is said to be built so it can store sensitive financial information. Should the iPhone 6 be bringing its very loyal customers the ability to pay for their purchases over the air, it’s still unclear how exactly the service would be implemented. There is guessing going around the Web that Touch ID would be incorporated somehow, as well as iBeacon. Just how all of this will be interconnected could get revealed as soon as the September 9 event.