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Apple Hiring NFC & Mobile Payment Personnel
No sooner do rumors start flying about Apple’s plans for near-field communications (NFC) and mobile payments systems in iPhone 5 and iPad 2 than job listings appear to back up the claim. Apple is now advertising for three jobs, including one engineer position and two global mobile payment platform managers.

The first listing is for an iPhone hardware test engineer, but lists the unusual requirement of “Good practical IR and RFID (ISO/IEC 14443) knowledge and experience.” Neither technology is currently among the iPhone’s specifications. RFID is a form of NFC that is often used in retail and payment applications, like MasterCard’s PayPass . As a side note, IR is most often used for remote control devices. Maybe Apple is looking to make its devices universal remotes, too?

The other jobs that suggest Apple is indeed interested in moving forward with mobile payments are for “Manager Global Payments Platforms.” Both openings carry the same description. Here’s an excerpt of how Apple defines its Global Payments division:

Global Payment Platforms is responsible for managing the customer payment options and business partnerships (internal and external) that allow Apple's customers to purchase product at our Online Store, iTunes, and Retail stores. The group is cross functional in nature, and will focus on developing global solutions to support these business units.

The individual in this role will contribute to the analysis and development of new payment types and processes for the various business units.

While the first paragraph suggests that the position is related to Apple’s existing payment platforms, the second indicates that there may be more to the position. Apple also lists among the job’s responsibilities ”explor[ing] new global payments initiatives and expansion; research and understand global payment rules and regulations” and “assist[ing] in managing partnerships with Associations, Card Schemes, Banks, and payment processors.”

As AppleInsider points out, Apple made a significant hire related to mobile payments last year, when it brought Benjamin Vigier on board. While alone, none of these moves or reports indicate definitively Apple’s commitment to mobile payments, taken together, they stand as a fairly solid indicator that Apple is at least seriously exploring the field’s possibilities.

Would you pay with Apple, given the chance?

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How to Create and Manage iOS Email Distribution Lists
It may surprise you to find that iOS doesn’t support email distribution lists. You might think that since you can mail to group in the OS X Mail application, and your groups have all synced to your iOS device, then you should be able to mail to that same group in iOS Mail as well, but you can’t. Luckily, there are ways around this particular omission.

Distribution in the Cloud

Most cloud-based distribution solutions will create a shared, semi-public list for a group to use. Google, Yahoo and MSN each has its own “Groups” offering that provide a single email address solution. Send an email to that one email address (e.g. groupname@googlegroups.com), and all registered members of the group will eventually get the message. ”Eventually” being the key word, since members may have changed their settings to receive one daily or weekly digest, instead of just each message as it arrives. Plus these groups are an opt-in solution, and each member can opt out at any time, so there’s no way of making sure recipients get email when you want them to.

There Are Two Apps for That

There are two pretty good apps that help close the feature gap on managing distribution lists in iOS Mail: MerckTech‘s iEDL and Javid Alimohideen‘s Mail2Group. The simpler of the two is iEDL ($1.99), which allows you to create lists using information from your address book or by manually enter email addresses. When you want to send a message to the list, select the group from within iEDL and it’ll launch directly into the iOS Mail app. Mail2Group ($1.99) has the same features and more. With Mail2Group, you can also copy groups, manually arrange the order of addresses within a group, and send up to six photos. The problem with both apps is that they don’t work when using the iOS SDK mail interface from within third-party apps.

A DIY Distribution List

The cheapest and most direct way to create a distribution list in iOS it to add a new contact and paste several comma delimited email addresses into just a single email field for the contact. Sounds easy enough, but it does involve a lot of typing, making it much easier to create and maintain on a Mac, and then sync to your iOS device. The process is the same on both platforms, however:
1. Create a new e-mail and manually add all recipients in the To: field. This is easier than typing in the addresses in full, since they should already be in your address book and will auto-complete.
2. Select all of the e-mail addresses and copy them into a plain text editor.
3. Delete all of the “Full Names” and <brackets>, leaving just the simple email@domain.com addresses, separated by commas (no spaces).
4. Copy the entire list as a single line of text.
5. Create a new contact and paste the entire list into one e-mail address entry for this new contact.
6. Save the new contact. That contact is now effectively a distribution list.
If you performed the above steps on your Mac, be sure to sync using MobileMe (if you’re a subscriber), Google or iTunes to get the new contact on each of your iOS devices. Now your distribution list is accessible to Mail app as well as any third-party app that has Mail access built-in. You may find that some third-party apps require the use of semi-colons or spaces instead of commas. To get around this, simply create a separate one line e-mail in your distribution list contact for each format. For example, you could comma separate the “Home” address, semi-colon the “Work” address, and use spaces for “Mobile.”

Any other tips for making the most out of distribution lists on the iPhone?

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Macworld 2011 Begins Today
I flew into San Francisco last night to get ready for my annual pilgrimage to the Moscone Center, to gather with other like-minded individuals to explore all things Apple at Macworld 2011 (the “Expo” has been dropped from the name this year). This is the second year Apple itself is not in attendance, and while the show still has plenty to offer, a keynote address by Sinbad simply doesn’t capture one’s imagination the way that a Steve Jobs product unveil does. Still, there’s plenty of excitement about the show and both Mac and iOS devices, accessories and software in the Apple community.

Macworld 2011 opens today with the User Conferences and the Industry Forum. The Expo floor opens Thursday to the public. As mentioned, keynote duties this year are being handled by comedian Sinbad: not the first person that comes to mind when contemplating Apple and geek culture. I thought David Pogue did a great job of playing directly to the Macworld crowd last year, and I wonder if Sinbad will be able to do the same.

Today’s Industry Forum is a first this year, bringing together analysts, media, and influencers. I’m looking forward to seeing Jason Snell of Macworld and John Gruber of Daring Fireball discuss Apple and its past successes and current trajectory. I’m also excited to see Mike Lawrence of Computer Using Educators talk about technology in education. Maybe we can get some good tools into the hands of those 100,000 new math, science, and technology teachers that were called for in the State of the Union.

From a consumer perspective, the Expo is probably the most exciting part of the show. Despite Apple’s absence, and the departure of several large vendors from the show floor, there are quite a few new vendors making their first appearance this year. The exhibit hall moving to Thursday through Saturday, rather than Wednesday to Friday, provides an extra weekend day should help push general attendance numbers higher than last year. Will new vendors see good returns on their investment? How do they view Macworld in comparison to CES, which gets more media attention and happens earlier in the month? Will they all come back next year?

My personal take is that the unspoken theme of the event overall for this year is “momentum.” It will be interesting to see how Apple’s breakthrough financial results convey momentum to the surrounding ecosystem. Are vendors optimistic? Still cautious in the general economic climate? What kind of momentum is developing in the Mac/iOS industry? These are all questions that I hope to find answers to in the next few days. What are some of yours?

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Apple's iOS Maintains Enterprise Edge Over Android
Android may have done much in the past year to catch up to, or even surpass Apple’s presence in many smartphone markets, but there’s one area where Apple’s mobile OS still has a strong lead: the enterprise. According to a new report, iOS still maintains more than double the rate of new enterprise activations when compared to Android.

The report (PDF), from enterprise software provider Good Technology, says that Apple’s iOS accounted for 65 percent of enterprise activations during the fourth quarter of 2010. Android, by comparison, accounted for only 30 percent of new activations. Good’s software manages mobile devices that use both iOS and Android platforms, but doesn’t work with BlackBerry or Windows Phone 7 devices. The company provides service for thousands of customers, including more than 40 among the Fortune 100. The findings in Good’s report reflect the experience of over 2,000 enterprise customers in total.

Much of the recent success of iOS in the enterprise can be attributed to the iPad, according to Good. The iPad grew to represent more than 20 percent of all iOS activations in its first eight months of availability. Unsurprisingly, the health care industry led the initial charge for iPad adoption (tablet computers weren’t strangers to hospitals even before the iPad’s introduction), but the financial services area is now the leader in iPad activations, and growth continues to be strong in that sector. Government, high tech, entertainment and other sectors trailed in terms of embracing Apple’s tablet. The iPad’s share of overall activations rose from 14 to 22 percent in the fourth quarter alone.

The iPhone was no slouch, either. The iPhone 4 was the most popular device by activations overall, with more than twice as many activations as any other advice during the month of October. The iPad was the second most frequently activated device during the quarter, and the iPhone 3GS continued to perform well, coming in third overall. The Motorola Droid X and Droid 2 both gave strong performances as well. There are so many different Android devices in use, Good says, that only a few very popular devices crack the top 10 in monthly activations, with the remainder taking up many of the spots below that threshold. No Android tablets cracked the top 10 for the quarter.

Good Technology concludes its report by predicting that 2011 will be the year of the tablet (a statement with which developers would seem to agree), led by the iPad, when it comes to new enterprise activations. I anticipated as much in my recent post for WebWorkerDaily, and Good’s conclusion about the changing roles of smartphones and tablets in the enterprise mirror my own thoughts in that piece:

We predict that in 2011, the iPad, along with other tablets, will be increasingly purchased and deployed by enterprises to meet specific business needs. This contrasts with smartphones, which we predict will continue to be driven primarily by the “Bring Your Own Device” model and more general productivity benefits.

The ability of Android to benefit from this trend will be dependent upon the quality of the Honeycomb tablets that emerge. The fact that Google is now providing a version of its mobile OS tailored to tablets should help increase enterprise adoption of the platform, but can it catch up to the iPad, especially now that many businesses for whom tablet usage makes the most sense have already invested significantly in Apple’s OS?

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Apple's Verizon iPhone Pages Temporarily Live, Plans Detailed
Good news for those eagerly awaiting the Verizon iPhone: Apple has created ordering pages for the device via its online retail site. The pages guide you through the process of ordering a new iPhone 4, and were momentarily live before Apple realized they were publicly accessible and pulled the plug.

Before Apple took down the pages, I had the chance to go through the ordering process. When they eventually return, you’ll first be asked whether or not you’re an existing customer, adding a new line, or signing up for a brand new contract, and then you’ll be taken through a number of plan configuration options.

The first configuration option is choosing a voice plan. Options include $39.99 a month for 450 minutes, $59.99 for 900 minutes (and 5 friends unlimited, any network) and finally, a Nationwide Unlimited offering for $69.99. Family sharing minute plans are also available.

You can also choose from two data plan options. The first is the $29.99 unlimited plan we reported on yesterday, and the second is a $49.99 plan that includes unlimited data and 2GB of usage with mobile hotspot or device tethering. Message plans begin at pay per use, and range up from $5 a month for 250 messages, to $10 for 500, and finally to $20 a month for unlimited.

Apple’s probably just getting its assets in place in order to prepare for the much-anticipated Feb. 10 launch of its smartphone on the Verizon network, and making sure all the kinks are worked out in advance. The company neglected to notice the fact that the pages were available to all, which gave us a nice little appetizer for the imminent launch. We’ll see them back live soon enough, and no doubt they’ll be heavily frequented when that happens.

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