It may be a case of putting the cart before the horse, but Boy Genius Report suggests that some of the retail rumblings coincident with the Apple Stores' 10th anniversary (coming this week) may have to do with the stores being equipped to take payments via Near Field Communications (NFC) setups. Presumably the existing EasyPay system could be swapped out for NFC-enabled iPod touch handhelds with a handy-dandy sled, giving Apple a solid test platform for future NFC hardware in other devices.
The rumor mill has been grinding at both ends on the
