New Apple patent could put an RFID reader in every pocket

The United States Patent and Trademark office has just published a patent from Apple, Inc. (filed December 27, 2007) for “An apparatus for providing radio frequency identification (RFID) and touch sensing capability”

This could show up in Apple products in a number of ways, but one side effect could be to add RFID reading capability to the iPhone. In the same way the camera integrated into the iPhone allows rudimentary barcode scanning capability, an RFID chip inside the next iPhone could turn it into a basic RFID reader.