Our answer has always been a completely definitive, "Soon.... ish." Because we really plan to support any way people want to pay with their phones, from QR codes to NFC to ultrasonic signals and maybe, eventually, Vulcan Mind Meld. (Our engineers are on it.)

But, now that we know 100% for sure that the new iPhone will absolutely, positively have NFC (probably), let's just say we're not waiting any longer. The proverbial fire has been lit for the industry and we're announcing awesome, shiny new hardware that supports paying with NFC for any phone with NFC capabilities. The new hardware will, of course, still support QR code scanning as well. We're agnostic to how you want to pay, so long as you pay with LevelUp.

"It's always been super important to us to make LevelUp work for any and every consumer on the planet," said Seth Priebatsch, Chief Ninja at LevelUp. "Our goal is to have LevelUp be the universal way to pay with whatever phone you may have, at whatever place you may be, whatever carrier you're on, whatever card you want to use and whatever technology you prefer. For us, that means being as open as possible to both consumer technologies and merchant point-of-sale systems to make the experience as simple as possible."

We're using our magical forecasting abilities (powered by a combination of Farmer's Almanacs, unicorns and Mayan descendants) to predict that if Apple announces an iPhone with NFC, consumers will adopt NFC. Apple has always been a revolutionary, market-shifting company, so we'll support whatever the new iPhone throws at us. And, if this time around there isn't NFC in the iPhone, anyone with an NFC-enabled Android can pay using LevelUp's new terminals.

LevelUp's payment experience is all about value far beyond just the transaction. So however you want to pay, we'll support it. It's the savings on our interchange zero network (for both consumers and merchants) that makes LevelUp epic. Whether you prefer using LevelUp with NFC or QR Code, that's up to you!

The new hardware, as with the old hardware, will be available free of charge to merchants on LevelUp. And, over time, we'll upgrade all merchants to the newest hardware.

So, what are you waiting for? Do you have a phone with a screen? Do you have a phone with NFC? Download the LevelUp app for iPhone, Android or Windows and start using the revolutionary new way to pay today! Merchants -- want to start accepting the most universal mobile payment network out there with zero interchange fees? Visit our business page for more information.