Google’s Nexus S Cannot Do Mobile Payments

If you’ve read my blog, you know I mourned the death of the Google Nexus One.

If you’ve read my Twitter you know I created a trending topic about Gingerbread when I mistakenly thought I was receiving Android 2.3 but instead was a two part 2.2 update (sorry again).

So clearly I’m interested in the Android platform, and in fact have an absolutely slick looking new version of my Android app coming out next month.

But Google is allowing misinformation to circulate.

I’ve been promoting the almost there prospects of RFID and Near Field Communication (NFC) since the middle of last year, so I have an interest in where this field is going. When I heard about the Nexus S shipping with NFC built in, I was excited to say the least. If you do a Google Search for Nexus S and Mobile Payments, you’ll get tons of articles from the AP all the way to niche Android blogs. Everyone seems to believe that on December 16th, they can buy a phone that makes mobile payments. Those people would be wrong. It won’t make payments on December 16th 2010. And depending on the hardware, it might not make payments on December 16th 2011 either.

The RFID reader as it’s currently shipping in the Google Nexus S, is just that - a reader. It’s read-only. No data is transmitted from the phone to an RFID sensor. This was confirmed by Simon Wilson, an engineer at Google, during this video.

What does this mean? If your phone can’t transmit data as part of the NFC transmission, then it can’t identify itself as your phone… as your credit card, etc. There is no data going from your phone to another RFID sensor. Your phone is only pulling data back. So your brand new Nexus S offers nothing but a cool bar code scanner when it comes to NFC.

Google is making no efforts to correct the incorrect assumptions and statements. To be fair, all Google has actually said is that Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS supports mobile payments, not that the Nexus S can actually deliver on mobile payments. Remember when Eric Schmidt responded to a question about why it was claimed there was no Nexus S by saying it was stated there was “no Nexus 2, not Nexus S.” Still, I can’t help but feel they’re letting people believe something that isn’t true.

I can’t wait to see read/write chips in Android and iPhone (speculating based on US patent 20090167699) in the near future. But there’s nothing “near” with the Near Field Communication in the Nexus S.

1. grindsports reblogged this from ryenyc
2. buswreck reblogged this from ryenyc
3. clewellgrl8935 reblogged this from ryenyc
4. ryenyc posted this