It’s in the air for past few months that the iOS platform from Apple is going to offer more stability while trying to make sure users have a more positive experience across all Apple devices. Now, as highlighted in The Information, the news is that latest iOS 12 will allow access to NFC chip that comes in the iPhone.
The information in the report is based on the fact that Apple is now willing to ensure that its iPhones should be usable in more contactless circumstances besides just making payments with Apple Pay.
One such use of iPhones on latest iOS version would be to double it up as your hotel room key allowing you access to your hotel rooms. For facilitating this, the developers would need to have access to NFC chop that comes as part of the device. Remember, it’s been since the iPhone 6 that Apple’s hardware is shipping with the NFC chips inside.
The manufacturer has already initiated the process of providing access to some functionality that is facilitated by NFC chips, although it’s on very basic level as of now. The iOS 11 software development kit brought CoreNFC framework, accessible to the developers consuming APIs that used NFC chip for reading information from the RFID tags. However, the design of APIs inside the framework is quite limiting and that meant there isn’t much that developers could do with it. So, it’s likely that Apple would rethink its framework completely so that it can be put to a better use.
It is also suggested by the report that the company is already testing how feasible such functionality would be as it partners with the HID Global which is a renowned security company that installed the entire security system at Apple Park.
It’s not just about using this functionality to access hotel rooms, rather Apple is eyeing other options as well where the technology can be used effectively including replicating it into physical transportation cards in very much the same manner as the case with iPhone 7 and the FeliCa chip that is being used in Japan only.
Now with only a few days left in WWDC 2018, and iOS 12 being the major announcement on the opening keynote, more details will be revealed about it during Apple’s event.