This is probably the primary reason Apple has never put an NFC chip in an iPhone. As Nolan points out, “Remember, this is the company that didn’t put 3G chipsets in their first iPhone because they were concerned about battery life.”
Another problem with NFC is that it is relatively costly to install the infrastructure to accept NFC payments. NFC-equipped phones must be tapped to an NFC terminal reader to work. To add NFC terminals in every mom and pop store across America would be a huge financial undertaking, which leads to a vendor adoption barrier. For the user, that severely limits the benefit of NFC. After all, what good is NFC in a phone if there are few cash registers to use it with?
Die iBeacon-Technologie ist NFC in allen Belangen überlegen. Zumindest auf dem Papier. Apple beobachtet sehr genau, was die Entwickler daraus machen. Erst wenn die Lösungen so bequem und einfach sind wie die Bedienung eines iPhones, wird Apple das Thema aufgreifen. Dann könnte ein „One more thing“ daraus entstehen.