You might have been reading plenty of news about the NFC chip within the Nexus S and now word is out that the chip, supplied by NXP, currently only allows the phone to read data. This means that the phone won’t be able to transfer data out via NFC from the get go, so we won’t be able to use it for mobile payments. While that isn’t the happiest news around, the good news is that NXP says that the limitation is only temporary and the chip will soon support the full range of features seen in devices that feature such technology. A specific date wasn’t mentioned, but it’s probably safe to assume that it will arrive in the form of an update somewhere down the line.
Update: NXP has clarified that the chip already supports read and write capabilities, which is definitely good news. However, the current version of the software developer kit (SDK) only supports Tag reading at the moment. Mystery solved.
Filed in . Read more about Android, Google, Nexus, Nexus S and NFC.