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They were _possible_ in 2012 but getting everyone on board is difficult. Google included NFC on the Nexus S in 2010. The Nexus S was an atrocious piece of jun

They were _possible_ in 2012 but getting everyone on board is difficult. Google included NFC on the Nexus S in 2010. The Nexus S was an atrocious piece of junk compared to its contemporary, the iPhone 4. NFC did nothing to make using the Nexus S more pleasurable. Android beam? Nobody used that. Google did not release the NFC-capable Wallet app until 2011, and at that time the integration between the app, the phone (still the Nexus S) and the payment terminals was ghastly. Nobody used it because it was much slower than paying by any other way and half the time it didn't work. The 2011 Galaxy Nexus didn't make things any better. The NFC antenna was attached to the flexible battery cover and the spring-loaded contacts didn't really work. Google was still pushing Wallet but the merchants didn't care because they weren't getting a better price on transaction clearance and close to nobody had the hardware. NFC was a complete basket case, and still remains that way except for Apple.

bduerst 11y ago
What you just described is exactly how Apple killed NFC adoption. The lack of NFC, or even announcing plans for NFC, from Apple made it very difficult to develop anything useful for NFC. Without universal market share and with an uncertain future, NFC was avoided by many hardware developers who would have built anything useful. June 2012 was the hinging point because it was when NFC payments were just picking up steam, but Apple elected to try to build their own walled-garden payments system using Passbook and bar codes.
- etchalon 11y ago
  What are you talking about? Passbook was never a payment system, it just had gift cards. Passbook isn't a payment system NOW. Apple Pay is, Passbook is just the app that shows users their credit cards.
  - bduerst 11y ago
    Right, Passbook was Apple's first play at mobile payments. They were trying to build an app ecosystem that used credits to to make mobile payments. It was Apple's response to NFC which wasn't very good.
    - etchalon 11y ago
      It wasn't a mobile payments play, though. It was a solution to storing things like movie tickets, airline tickets, gift card vouchers, etc. "Payment" was never in its vocabulary.

bduerst 11y ago

What you just described is exactly how Apple killed NFC adoption. The lack of NFC, or even announcing plans for NFC, from Apple made it very difficult to develop anything useful for NFC. Without universal market share and with an uncertain future, NFC was avoided by many hardware developers who would have built anything useful. June 2012 was the hinging point because it was when NFC payments were just picking up steam, but Apple elected to try to build their own walled-garden payments system using Passbook and bar codes.

etchalon 11y ago
What are you talking about? Passbook was never a payment system, it just had gift cards. Passbook isn't a payment system NOW. Apple Pay is, Passbook is just the app that shows users their credit cards.
- bduerst 11y ago
  Right, Passbook was Apple's first play at mobile payments. They were trying to build an app ecosystem that used credits to to make mobile payments. It was Apple's response to NFC which wasn't very good.
  - etchalon 11y ago
    It wasn't a mobile payments play, though. It was a solution to storing things like movie tickets, airline tickets, gift card vouchers, etc. "Payment" was never in its vocabulary.