Will We Be Buying By iPhone Soon?

It's rumored that the upcoming iPhone 5 will employ a new technology called Near Field Communications, or NFC, that will let a mobile device owner wave their phone over a short range wireless receiver or tap the device to make a purchase. This technology is already widespread in Japan and used in Europe, but still hasn't broken through here in the States. But of course, if Apple adopts NFC, it's a whole new ball game.

Pay-by-cell phone, like subscription music, has been a dream of technologists and entrepreneurs alike for some time because of it's many advantages. Like what, you say?

How about an instant purchase without having to worry about the whole credit card process and the time it takes? Or all those purchases going automatically to just one bill - your cell phone bill? Or how about a jump start to the most sought-after transaction ever - micropayments? And as you'll see, it can be used for music discovery too.

Just like most improvements in our technological lives, convenience always triumphs over everything else, and an NFC enabled phone would certainly be the next step.

Interestingly enough, I first heard about NFC two years ago when I interviewed my friend Ken Rutkowski, the host of the World Tech Roundup at KenRadio.com and facilitator of the Media Entertainment Technology Alliance, for the Internet music guidebook Music 3.0. Ken hit it right on the nose about NFC, only his take was more about music discovery and sharing. Here's what he had to say.

"There’s a new technology in Asia that’s trickling down here called NFC, or Near Field Communication. It’s like Bluetooth in that it allows us to sync with other devices, but it’s more specific. 

If I walk into a room of 20 people, my device will know which of those 20 people I want to sync with and what areas of their device that I want to sync with. For example, say five of these people are trusted friends that have trusted libraries on their phones. When I walk into this group, my phone, through NFC, might intelligently connect to all my friends’ phones and download a playlist or certain types of content. It’s all invisible to me. So the next form of communication and technology is the personalization of my community while I’m with my community. 

Any time I’m with you I get to experience the music that you’re listening to, for example, without having to go download it off the Internet. When I get back after hanging out with you, I’ll see my phone blinking and realize that I just exchanged content with you. It’s a new type of discovery that you don’t have to manually engage. That makes meeting people one-on-one more important than having that distance that we have today. It’s more about “I want to discover, but I want to be with my friends when I’m discovering.” It’s hard to wrap your head around it, but I believe that it’s going to make people want to get together more."

As you can see, there are a lot of benefits that an NFC device can hold. iPhone 5, hurry up and get here soon.

Check out my website to read more excerpts from Music 3.0.

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