What does it take to create an app for iPhone?

To what extend will developers be able to utilize NFC to allow purchases via an iPhone/Android app, and therefore potentially take a cut of the revenue?

• From what I have read, it seems like NFC mobile payments will be controlled by the carriers (ATT/Verizon/T-Mobile) via ISIS, Google, and/or Apple. With that in mind, how might the developer ecosystem end up looking? Are independent developers even necessary for mobile payments via NFC? If I'm Apple, for example, I want to control any revenue that comes through NFC via iPhone, so I would create an app that taps into payment information already attached to an Apple account. Since the only functionality needed (for mobile payments) is essentially "take out the phone and allow the credit card details to be read and verified by the merchant," I think that for mobile payments, there won't really be a need for a third-party developer ecosystem. For other use cases (NFC for coupons, for scanning advertisements, etc.) I could see the big players allowing some kind of API and creating a third-party developer ecosystem. But I don't see it happening with payments. Any thoughts?

• Answer:

  I see no reason why any of the players involved (carriers, handset manufacturers, banks and payment associations) should want to open up the payment mechanism for developers, I can see plenty of reasons why they should not (security and business model). So it won't happen. In general the secure element, in whatever form (embedded or in the SIM) will be tightly controlled. It is the heart of the main focus of the NFC business model.