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One of the more interesting features that will be coming to the iPhone and iPad in the future is NFC. NFC stands for Near Field Communication. What NFC technology would do for the iPhone is let iPhone customers use their phones to pay for transactions. Some examples of NFC devices are the Mobile Speedpass or a credit card that you tap on a payment device, in order to charge your card account.

Currently there are opportunities for iphone customers to pay with their phones such as with the Starbucks Mobile app, however the implementation is not perfect. Inside the app, a barcode is displayed to be scanned at the register. There seems to be a large delay in the reading of the barcode and sometimes the barcode will not even scan. These issues could be as a result of things trivial like the angle the iPhone is held at amount of light given off by the backlight.

Some of these issues would ideally be fixed by NFC technology. Users would only have to have a device onto or next to a reader rather than at a specific angle or using certain default settings. However NFC technology also incorporates a new threat which is security. With RFID, there is a lot of debate about security in that people with special devices, pick up RFID information from large distances, without users knowing. It will be interesting to see what security precautions NFC will utilize and if it will be safe enough for most people to consider.