iPhone 5 To Have NFC, iPad WiFi Gets GPS?

In the past few days, there have been a lot of rumors about iPhone 5 and iPad 2. Some of Apple’s main partners are located in Japan, so it is easy to assume that Apple and its products could be affected by the major disaster that is going on in that area. Regardless of what is happening in Japan, Apple is expected to debut iPhone 5 in the next few months. As opposed to what some analysts have suggested, Apple still has every intention of bringing e-wallet capability to its next generation phones. Forbes’ Elizabeth Woyke’s source has claimed that iPhone 5 will indeed take advantage of NFC technologies:

An entrepreneur who is working on a top-secret NFC product told me today that he believes the iPhone 5 will have NFC and cited a friend who works at Apple as a reliable source for the information. To further bolster his statement, the entrepreneur said that manufacturers of NFC readers – whom he has been talking to for his own product – also expect the iPhone 5 to have NFC.

Apple does need to go beyond adding minor features to iPhone to stay competitive against the next wave of Android phones. The company may have been a bit conservative with its iPad 2 offering. We don’t expect Apple to be as conservative when it comes to designing iPhone 5.

Speaking of iPad 2, many iPad owners would love to have GPS capability on their device without having to pay for a monthly data plan. The good is those of you who have an iPhone 4 can use your device’s personal hotspot feature to add GPS capability to your iPad 2.

This is definitely not the perfect solution. Products such as Bad Elf GPS Receiver offer much better reliability. Nevertheless, iPad 2 WiFi is all of a sudden a whole lot more attractive. That is if you can get your hands on one or have the patience to wait for a couple of weeks to get yours.