Next iPhone to interact with devices via RFID?


Industry rumors suggest Apple maybe adding RFID capabilities to its next generation iPhone.

RFID or radio frequency identification is essentially a barcode transmitted via a radio frequency. When triggered and/or a reader gets close enough to pick up the transmission, it can read the tag, similar to how a barcode scanner can read an optical tag when the laser is aligned.

Latest iPhone rumors have reading such transmissions integrated to the device. The original report comes from Near Field Communications World (via 9 to 5 Mac). The most likely applications would seem to involve syncing and discovery of the iPhone to other devices. This could allow the iPhone to easily configure itself for or perhaps make itself aware of external devices or networks, rather somewhat tedious manual configurations.

that Apple has recently filed a number of patents related to RFID.