This opinion piece in Computerworld written by Evan Schuman, a very credible reporter, identifies a potential breakthrough; Apple has taken a step towards opening up NFC:
“For quite a few years, Apple has made Apple Pay extremely easy to use, and one of its best ease-of-use tricks is to allow NFC-powered Apple Pay to launch the instant it detects an NFC signal. The user doesn’t have to launch an app, or even to click on anything. The phone can be in airplane mode as well as not riding local Wi-Fi. Mere proximity to the signal does it all, with a quick finger scan or face glance being all that is needed to make the transaction happen.
Now, with iOS 12, Apple wants to share that magic with the industry, via an SDK. Well, not quite, but it’s starting along that path.
Apple has been surprisingly quiet about this change, not even mentioning it during its Apple Developer Conference about iOS 12. Apple has also ignored Computerworld’s request to discuss this new capability and hasn’t been quoted on it anywhere that we can find.”
This is a path many in the payments industry have been hoping for! Apple’s lock on NFC has bifurcated the market. While anyone can access NFC on Android devices, only Apple has had access to NFC on iPhones. A bank would like to have a payment capability in its mobile app and some have in Android, but that wasn’t possible for the iPhone and it looks like we’ll still need to wait awhile to determine if Apple is opening up NFC that far:
“Let’s first drill into what Apple did. According to Apple developer documentation about the NFC change, Apple is making the new capabilities available, but only for the latest batch of phones from this month (the iPhone XS, the iPhone XS Max and the iPhone XR). The iPhone X — and certainly anything older — won’t support the new NFC magic for third-party apps.
It also is blocked by airplane mode being enabled, Apple’s document said. It said what it said, but I am wondering if it would still work if airplane mode was enabled, but Wi-Fi was active. In other words, does it need any internet connection, or must be it have access to carrier signal? And given that Apple Pay launches NFC without a manual app launch with neither, it’s a baffling move. That’s why we asked for an Apple interview, and it’s also probably why Apple chose to ignore that request.
Apple made a few other restrictions, but those generally make much more sense. The device must have at some point been unlocked, thus excluding a brand-new never-used phone. It won’t launch an NFC session for a third-party app if an NFC session (such as Apple Pay) is already in progress. It won’t launch if the phone’s camera is in use. Not clear why the camera would be an issue for an NFC wireless interaction, but Apple chose to make it a disqualifier.
Also “in order to avoid unintentional tag reading, the system reads tags in the background only when the user’s iPhone is in use,” Apple’s documentation said.”
So its too early to tell if Apple has enabled 3rd party apps running in Apple’s Secure Enclave to access NFC or how the appropriate app is identified, if all data attributes are accessible to the app executed, or what read/write support that app will have over NFC.
All we can do is hope that this makes NFC payments possible using the major payment networks!
Overview by Tim Sloane, VP, Payments Innovation at Mercator Advisory Group