Why iPhone 5 No NFC?

Why iPhone 5 does not include NFC function? People are curious about this question since iPhone 5 Announcement. Is it wise for Apple to do so?   Since only 2% of merchants in the world are equipped with NFC reader terminals. That's not nearly enough to merit Apple's attention, said Rick Oglesby, an analyst at Aite Group. "Apple would need something really global to make it work," he said.   Explaining why the iPhone 5 does not include NFC, Apple senior vice president Phil Schiller said that "Passbook does the kinds of things customers need today."   Instead of adding NFC to the iPhone, Apple decided to promote its Passbook mobile payment software, which runs on the new iPhone's iOS 6 mobile operating system.   "Passbook is the best way to collect all your passes in one place," said Scott Forstall, Apple's senior vice president of iOS software. He showed how an airline boarding pass, a Starbucks card, a football ticket and other forms of money-backed "passes" can be presented in bar code format to make a transaction.   NFC payment systems require special software or special payment terminals for communicating with NFC chips in smartphones, and some merchants have balked at adopting those technologies.   "In a move to increase functionality in the device, clearly LTE was the first priority and more important than NFC right now," said Jack Gold, an analyst at J.Gold Associates. "NFC does take up space and resources in the phone, so they would have had to perhaps make the device somewhat thicker or have had less space for battery. Even though NFC is only a chip, it also requires an antenna that could interfere with others in a highly compact device."   Gold said there's no compelling reason for Apple to provide NFC at this time. "NFC has taken off very slowly and will likely take at least a couple more years to catch on," he added.   From: Computerworld