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.
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
2 responses to “Leaked logic boards revive ‘NFC on iPhone 6’ rumor”
Umm.. there are no chips on those boards.. they are bear.. there is no way to tell if there is or isn’t NFC..
Also.. custom circuit boards are relatively cheep to have made. You don’t even have to know what your doing to order a few that follows a specific form factor and circuit board pattern.. they don’t even have to be functional.. lol
Most anyone could order one to fit the mockups screw holes.. heh.. get a few chip pin patterns and such in there and make sure that looks close to the 5s but looks different enough to speculate on.. and vooomm.. we have a new blog with many clicks!