Forum Moderators: bakedjake
Apple's forthcoming iPad and iPhone are expected to include a mobile payments feature that the firm hopes will replace cash and cards for millions of users....
...According to analysts, Apple is considering heavily subsidising payment terminals for shops as it prepares to take on rival "Near Field Communications" (NFC) systems from Visa and Mastercard, which allow shoppers to simply wave their credit card at the checkout.
The second iPad is due in April, swiftly followed by the fifth iPhone in June....
the technology will allow you to use your phone in place of a credit card by simply tapping the phone against special sensors in retail stores. NFC will also allow for phones to swap data between each other with a minimal amount of hassle, as soon as developers add support for that (the Nexus S chip supports both read and write operations). This is basically future-proofing the phone, and a year from now I expect that most Android phones (and likely iPhones) will be shipping with NFC.