There have been rumors in the past that NFC could be one of the features that would make its way into Apple’s iPhone, and while Apple’s Phil Schiller explained why NFC is missing from the iPhone, it has not stopped the rumor mill from suggesting otherwise. Well a recent patent by Apple has been spotted that seems to suggest that Apple has toyed with the idea of NFC in their phones, although when exactly it will make its debut remains to be seen.
This particular patent describes a method of gifting iTunes purchased products to other iOS devices. At the moment there are a number of ways that one can gift another person an iTunes product, through gift codes and such, but there is currently no way of gifting an iTunes purchase from iOS device to iOS device physically. The patent suggests that the use of NFC could be one of the ways in which someone could gift an iTunes purchase to another person, tap their devices together and the purchase should be transferred. Like we said there’s no telling when Apple will implement NFC in their phones, but at least they’re considering it.