The problem with some people in this thread (not saying you) is that they think NFC is for payments only. I would absolutely expect that something you want to make sure/confirm would have security measures in place to avoid accidental charges.
As stated by someone else before me in this thread (and I also listed several NFC type applications) - NFC is and can do a lot more than payments.
Oh, I don't disagree that NFC can be used for many many many more things outside of payments. Afterall, I do have an NFC capable phone. And I'm a developer.
But as an owner of a NFC capable phone, I fail to find compelling uses at the moment because of three main problems:
1) Lack of deployment (not enough NFC devices to interact with)
2) Lack of higher level protocol standardization (When two NFC devices meet, nobody has a solution as to what should happen.
3) Lack of feature support (Did anybody here know that Google doesn't have a card emulation API for Android and instead is pushing Android Beam instead of letting you, well, use the most compatible technique for NFC integration?)
Here's the thing, the common user here on the forums think of technology on such a high and broad level that they assume everything's easy to do as long as it supports feature xyz.
But it's not so clear cut like that.
We've seen it before. Who here had a Motorola v710 on Verizon. Remember the bluetooth class action lawsuit? Apparently people thought that anything with Bluetooth should be able to do OBEX. It is not true. But people just assume that.
Likewise, people think that having a USB port on an iPad would suddenly make all sorts of cool accessories work with it because "hey, it support USB!" No.
Or how about MicroSD card slots?
"Hey! My Xoom has a microSD card slot! Yay! What do you mean it doesn't work?"
"Sweet! My WinMo7 phone can be expanded by microSD! What do you mean I can't remove it after I put it in without wiping?"
We're seeing it again with the new Lightning connector, not realizing it's the stepping stone to USB3.
But I digress.
Right now, NFC gets me (if I buy in whole hog into the NFC bandwagon):
1) Tag to launch URL.
2) Tag to launch App.
3) PIN/App/Tag to buy stuff
4) Basic contacts transfer from device to device
5) Entry / key card.
6) Inventory tracking (essentially personal barcoding)
7) other things I sure to have missed.
When I say it like that, it sounds neat. But the fine print isn't very friendly.
I'd venture to guess that somebody in charge at Apple is asking the question: "Would this feature definitively make the user's life better right now, and if not, does it have the potential to? And if it has the potential to, how do we make that potential a reality?"
And the answer I'd venture to guess is: "No, it's a hell hole right now. But it could become awesome. But we need to partner with a lot of people to get ball rolling."
Launching an App from a tag. Is it easier to encode a bunch of tokens with app info to launch instead of bringing up the app panel on the phone itself? Probably not. What's a situation where people in general benefit from this?
Entry card; There's a lot of NFC/RFID systems out there that can work with card emulation. Except, card emulation requires passing around the security keys that help you clone keys. Not very good when you're trying to secure the entry system. What's even worse is: how do you pick what NFC card you want your phone to pretend to be (until in the far future when some company finally does standardize an open protocol for authentication)? Use an app? So now I have to turn on the phone, open a specific app, and then use the app to open my hotel room door? Not exactly as easy as select the card from my real wallet, is it?
Likewise, payments. Payments comes up as the most common example because buying stuff is something everybody does often. It's a great example. It's also one of the most well known NFC deployments in the US (despite its infancy) partly because of the Google Wallet push. It also blends all of the problems of NFC adoption into one coherent story.
Another thing about Google Wallet is that it supports at the moment only MasterCards from Citibank.
I do happen to have one. But it's not my main credit card. In fact, it's my last ditch credit card behind a Visa and an AMEX who both give me more rewards points. If Apple were to launch NFC right now, it'd be even tougher trying to convince us that NFC's going to change our lives when only one bank in one country supports a subset of their cards for payment. And the user experience means that we'd be futzing with our phones every time we make a payment.
Contacts transfer. This can work pretty well if people had more NFC devices. Is it worth the time investment for people to carry around NFC business cards? Eh... not so much right now. There just isn't that many NFC readers. Eventually, this will be the norm. But dang, QR codes and normal business cards are more compatible and lower cost for the time being.
The compelling user experience story just isn't there.
When it is, you'll see an iPhone with NFC.
In the meantime, you can listen to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkzPc8ZvCco#t=3490s