I'm neither open-minded or practical? Who doesn't know who? You make the bold statement that I don't know you then proceed to make wild assumptions about me. Brilliant!
First of all, chill. Throughout your post you attempted to insult many. Stop it. Many of us HAVE gone to other platforms and we do KNOW the dangers of implementing technology too fast. It's unstable and unsafe.
You people seem to fail to understand that NFC functionality is totally separate from Apple Pay. Apple can still make Apple Pay secure without gimping NFC functionality. One does not necessitate the other. Apple Pay simply uses NFC technology to accomplish a task.
I searched Google today, but I failed to find any confirmed instances of someone hacking a phone through NFC. So, I guess it's not as much of a security risk as some would like us to believe.
http://www.nearfieldcommunication.org/nfc-security.html Here's a list of possible threats. Take a look at that last one. The reason why Apple has not included NFC is because retailers didn't offer it. Now that Apple is on board things will be different. Risk is about to get a whole LOT greater. Not taking precaution is VERY DANGEROUS and can cause Apple's stock to come crashing. Look at the damage some of those other security risks have done.
Just because we know it's a closed ecosystem doesn't mean that it's okay. This is a forum. Forums are used for discussion and sometimes venting. I'm allowed to gripe about the way a company chose to implement a feature on a $1000 piece of hardware (that I bought). I'm not obligated to perceive it as a perfect product, just because it was designed by a certain company.
If you want a completely open system, there is Android but you knew in your heart of hearts Apple doesn't do things like Android. You went into this fully knowing what to expect from Apple and are throwing a tantrum when it turns out to be true. Just because you spent $1000 on a piece of hardware DOES NOT MEAN you are capable of making design conditions of the OS. You're just going to have to put in the minuscule extra effort to turn on your device until Apple works the dangers out.
On Android, you can turn off NFC, if you're not using it. It remains to be seen if you can do this on iPhone, but if you can't, you're basically getting (slightly) reduced battery life for the privilege of one feature, which, let's face it, many average consumers probably won't use to begin with. I'm not saying it'll be a drastic hit, but if you're going to force me to leave NFC on all the time, at least give me other uses for it.
The fact that one of the many things you had to do to make the battery life decent on an Android device was to turn off NFC says otherwise. I do not know the design of the chips so I or anyone else that isn't a hardware engineer can say if it does or not. Seeing how you are able to turn bluetooth on and off, I kind of think they are going to include the option for NFC.
At the end of the day, this post went about how I expected. If I had posted it in an Android forum or a general forum, there may have been a few objective responses. Instead, I posted it in an iPhone forum where the blinders are on in full. It's funny that you accuse me of not being open-minded or practical when I'm the one who owns multiple smartphones from multiple platforms, with a new iPhone on the way. If anything, I'm the most objective person here. And I'm sorry if living in the Apple Ecosystem for so long makes some people incapable of objectivity because when you blindly defend a product's flaws, you come across as a cultist.
You are not open minded because you can't seem to get over the Android way of thinking where the doors are wide open. You are no longer in Kansas, Sunshine. You're in Apple land now. You do not have ultimate control. Get used to it. Here's another article about the dangers of NFC: Researchers use shopping cart to put mobile, NFC payment theft on wheels | ZDNet Apparently you didn't look hard enough. Do you think Android has the influence Apple has on most retailers that this could not open up a HUGE can of worms. Seriously. You should start thinking objectively. Instead it's "ME, ME, ME. I want this NOW!" And you have apparently not thought about anything other than your bluetooth speaker
I suppose that limiting the original iPhone to 2G when 3G was prevalent was okay. Or choosing radios that would not allow you to surf the internet over LTE while on a phone call was all "part of the plan". Even though other manufactures had no issue implementing these features in their phones. You can rationalize a defense for anything if you're invested in a product. Being objective is much harder.
You say you had all the phones so you surely remember what LTE was like right? Probably not seeing how you conveniently forget how much of a power hog it was. How available was LTE when it was first introduced? You seem to be forgetting a lot of things.
I bought an iPhone 6 Plus because I wanted one. But, like every other product on the market, it's not perfect. This post wasn't about bashing Apple. It was literally about asking "why would they do that"? I guess I'm just not as complacent is some of the rest of you.