One of the elements of the Department of Justice lawsuit against Apple, brought a few days ago, concerns the NFC chip in the iPhone. This is the chip that powers Apple Pay, and the company won’t let outside firms use it, citing security and privacy reasons. It looks like that’s about to change, and Apple is secretly preparing for it now.The NFC chip is what makes Apple Pay so quick and effortless to pay for stuff by tapping your phone on a card reader.
For financial, safety and security reasons, then, you can see why Apple doesn’t want to open the chip up.However, when the European Union introduced the Digital Markets Act in early March this year, one of the conditions was that Apple should offer access to the NFC chip. Citing security issues, Apple was wary of doing this, but reluctantly agreed.