Apple May Enable Near Field Remote Computing with iPhone 5

(Image courtesy of Cult of Mac)

If you happen to even casually follow Apple's various patent filings, you probably already know that the cooks in Cupertino's labs are already planning to implement near field communication (RFC) technology into a future iPhone, enabling wireless payments and other possibilities yet to come. A new report finds that one of those possibilities may include remote computing.

Cult of Mac is reporting on a tip they've received about Apple's near field communication plans for the iPhone 5, and it goes well beyond the handset's abilities to be simply an electronic wallet. Remote computing could very well be on the radar for the next iPhone, which would allow users to "carry a lot of their desktop data and settings with them -- and load that data onto a compatible Mac."

NFC is already in widespread use across Asia, mainly for contactless payment methods. However, experts predict that a NFC revolution is coming in the next three to five years -- particularly if companies like Apple get on board with their popular mobile devices.

So how would NFC remote computing work? Both the iPhone and the Mac would have to be NFC-enabled, and of course within range of each other. Essentially the mobile device would carry all of your data, and when used on a Mac away from home, the system would magically be the same as if the user was sitting at home in front of your own computer -- including applications, settings and other data.

"The Mac authenticates with the iPhone, which contains a lot of the information the computer needs, such as bookmarks, passwords and other data," explains the anonymous source who leaked the information to Cult of Mac. "The system would essentially turn any Apple computer into your own-- like you're actually working on your own computer. Same settings, look, bookmarks, preferences. It would all be invisible. Your iPhone would be all you needed to unlock your Mac.

"Address Book would show their contacts, and the user would have full access to their information in the same manner they would if they were working from home," the source continues. "This same behavior extends to even showing the same desktop picture, mouse and keyboard settings, and would eventually extend to software licenses and passwords for websites such as Facebook."

So what happens to all of that user data when the iPhone gets out of range of the Mac system in question? "When a person walks away with their iPhone and away from the communication link with the Mac, the original settings of the Mac would be restored. All communications and storage of passwords stays on the user's iPhone, leaving nothing stored on the computer.

"This functionality is extended to access a user's home folder, which will be stored and accessed either through storage on MobileMe or by using the Back to My Mac feature to connect to the user's home folder."

As magical and Apple-like as it all sounds, there are likely some challenges to making it all "just work" -- including the ever-expanding size of user's hard drives, particularly with gigabytes of iPhoto pictures, iTunes music and videos and more. Storage space on the mobile device itself will no doubt be an issue, particularly with the most recent iPhone 4 topping out at only 32GB and next year's iPhone 5 will likely only get a bump to 64GB, which many people expected this year.

The speed of the connection between the devices will also be an issue. At least one analyst believes that NFC would only act as the initial link between the iPhone and Mac, at which point another type of technology might take over, such as Bluetooth.

"The usual idea is that you would use NFC to set up the link between the two devices and then do an automatic hand over to a different protocol for doing the actual transfer of data -- e.g. Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, TransferJet etc. -- and that's what I imagine would be happening here," explained Sarah Clark, an analyst with SJB Research who is also the editor of Near Field Communications World.

While Cult of Mac seems confident that NFC technology will hit the iPhone 5 next year, they caution that this particularly exciting use for it may not -- and the source of this information warns that Apple may never implement it at all, leaving it simply as some kind of crazy sci-fi in the labs. But we can dream, can't we…?

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http://www.maclife.com/article/news/apple_may_enable_near_field_remote_computing_iphone_5

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