Leaked logic boards revive ‘NFC on iPhone 6’ rumor

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iPhone-6-Air-PCB-2

Tell me if you’ve heard this rumor before: the iPhone is getting NFC this year.

Well NFC fever is back again for 2014’s iPhone rumor season, only instead oozing from the mouths of misinformed analysts, a new rumor based on alleged iPhone 6 logic board claims that both the 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch iPhone 6s will be the first Apple devices to finally support near field communications.

Over the weekend, Nowherelse.fr published a set of photos of an allegedly leaked bare iPhone 6 logic board for the 4.7-inch device and another for the 5.5-inch model. Along with the longer arm at the top, different screw holes and a 802.11ac WiFi card, the part allegedly includes support for NFC.

We can’t verify the authenticity of the boards, and the NFC rumor has been around popping up like whack a mole since the iPhone 3GS, but the component layout is similar to the iPhone 5s. The part numbers – 820-3675-04 and 820-2486-09 – are also similar to Apple’s numbering pattern.

It seems like an odd move for Apple to include NFC support on the iPhone 6 when it could have easily done so on previous models. Apple has instead opted to support Bluetooth LE for its emerging army of iBeacons, but a new rumor of Apple’s upcoming payments system claims the next iPhone will have a “secured element” in the phone, or a piece of hardware where sensitive info, like all your financial details will be stored.

Another rumor from an analyst in China claimed the iPhone 6 was getting NFC support to take advantage of China UnionPay’s 3 million QuickPass machines throughout the mainland. It’s not clear why Apple would need NFC over Bluetooth LE, especially when Bluetooth 4.0 seems to be taking off strong than NFC, so I wouldn’t get your hopes quite yet.

 

 

 

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