NFC-enabled Handsets
In 2011, handset vendors released more than 40 NFC-enabled handsets. Notably absent among them was Apple with its iPhone; version 6 of its iOS mobile operating system does not support NFC. According to a Wall Street Journal article, today's Apple prefers not to be in a first mover position. Google, on the other hand, includes NFC functionality in their Android mobile operating system and provides a NFC payment service, Google Wallet. BlackBerry devices have also supported NFC using BlackBerry Tag on a number of devices running BlackBerry OS 7.0 and greater. Mastercard has added further NFC support for PayPass for the Android and BlackBerry platforms, enabling PayPass users to make payments using their Android or BlackBerry smartphones. Microsoft added native NFC functionality in their mobile OS with Windows Phone 8, as well as the Windows 8 operating system. Microsoft provides the "Wallet hub" in Windows Phone 8 for NFC payment, and can integrate multiple NFC payment services within a single application.
Read more about this topic: Near Field Communication