Windows Phone 7.5 Already Supports NFC

In an interview with TechRadar, Will Coleman, developer evangelist and product manager at Microsoft UK believes that the current build of Windows Phone 7.5 does, in fact, support Near Field Communications (NFC) technology. The thing is that manufacturers have yet to take advantage of the feature. According to Coleman:

“As far as I’m aware, NFC is supported by [Windows Phone], but needs to be enabled by the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer). So, if any OEM wants to enable it, that can be done by all means.”

Coleman also believes that we will soon see some exciting things happening around NFC technology:

“Think it’s about just about timing, in the not too distant future there are some exciting things that will be coming through with NFC from Microsoft.”

Nokia’s head of apps partnerships also chimed in on the future of NFC in their own devices:

“NFC isn’t an if, it’s a when, it will happen. Obviously there’s no NFC on our launch devices, so it’s difficult to comment too much on that, but the main divisions between secure and non-secure [NFC] mean there’s bags of opportunity for the technology [on our phones] especially with so many operators launching services.

“We need to get a [Windows Phone] device into the marketplace with NFC capabilities, and when we do we can really start to showcase our services.”

With Android iterating over and over again at the speed of light, it will become increasingly important for WIndows Phone to stay at feature parity with other platforms. NFC is considered by many to be the future of mobile computing, so it’s good to hear that it’s supported in Windows Phone 7.5, but we need the OEMs to begin to take advantage of that capability.

Source:Windows Phone Metro ; TechRadar