Smartphones have increasingly been more functional in recent years. In the same way, Apple's CEO Tim Cook sees the company's iPhone series to be useful in paying for goods and services. According to recent information, the tech giant has been working on including a Near Field Communication (NFC) technology payment system in the iPhone 6. Can the company pull it off?
Apple appears serious in bringing mobile payment system into their iPhone offering. According to a report by BrightWire, the company has also initiated a deal with China UnionPay. The bank's services will be incorporated in Apple's Passbook application and similar programs.
Some were surprised by the report especially after Phil Schiller, Apple's marketing head, dismissed the idea of mobile payments saying that NFC does not help with the current problems the company has been working on. Despite this, Ming-Chi Kuo from KGI Securities, remains convinced that NFC chips will be used in the upcoming handset.
Tim Cook also once told the Wall Street Journal:
"I think it's a really interesting area. We have almost 800 million iTunes accounts and the majority of those have credit cards behind them. We already have people using Touch ID to buy things across our store, so it's an area of interest to us. And it's an area where nobody has figured it out yet. I realize that there are some companies playing in it, but you still have a wallet in your back pocket and I do too which probably means it hasn't been figured out just yet."
Apple has not made any official announcements about the device. Reuters previously reported that the tech giant may release the 4.7-inch version around August to be followed by the 5.5-inch phablet version in September. Analysts believe that Apple can hit a jackpot with the larger version.
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