NFC Payments Coming to Apple Stores Soon, Therefore to the iPhone 5 Too?

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Yesterday we talked about the fact that Apple is prepping something special for its tenth retail store anniversary which will be celebrated this week and we guessed that the next-gen MacBook Air could be unveiled at some point later this week.

It turns out that might not be the case as more evidence suggests that Apple is actually making sure its retail stores get ready for NFC payments. According to BGR, Apple is currently working on bringing NFC support to its stores. New tables have been installed, as well as new “TBD devices” and they could be all about this new Near Field Communication payment technology, which could be used by Apple in the near future.

Another interesting tidbit is that Apple’s POS devices went down for “maintenance” for a whole day, which could also indicate something’s about to be changed in the near future. But even if NFC does come to all of Apple’s retail stores starting with this week, what devices will customers actually use to take advantage of NFC payments?

Some sources suggest that the next iPhone won’t come with NFC capabilities. But considering that Apple is apparently interested in deploying NFC in its stores already, I’m definitely thinking that the iPhone 5/4S could employ such technology after all.

On the other hand, even if the iPhone 5 does come with NFC support, that doesn’t mean that all the customers that purchase Apple products from its retail stores actually buy iPhones too, so therefore this NFC payment system will be somewhat limited at first. Not even the competition is completely ready for NFC, so it might take a while for this payment system to catch on as a standard.

Nevertheless NFC and NFC payments represent the future, and Apple has proven, more than once, that it’s always going to choose the future over the past when it comes to adopting new tech and therefore I wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple get ready today for switching to NFC payments tomorrow, somewhat metaphorically speaking of course.

The same point could be made about launching an LTE-ready iPhone this year, although it would probably be a lot easier, and by that I mean cheaper, for Apple to include NFC support in this year’s iPhones and leave LTE for next year.