In some interesting patent news that for once actually doesn’t involve Apple and Samsung going at each others’ throats, it looks as though Apple has landed a NFC related patent for a shopping app which would allow consumers to take full advantage of the iPhone’s available features to make purchases. This involves taking pictures, scanning or manually entering UPC codes, and of course, the NFC touch scan.

I find this interesting because Apple is historically not one to hop onto a bandwagon that is still developing. Does this mean that Apple really believes that NFC is ready for primetime? Maybe there’s some connection to Passbook here? Guess we’ll find out when September/October (presumably) rolls around. Of course, many of Apple’s patents never see the light of day, but with the future of payments and connectivity being heavily based on NFC, the company would be daft not to hop onboard.

Via: Engadget

Source: USPTO