While that's probably the only way to get an NFC launch really going, there is no way Apple will announce a hardware update like that three months before the rest of the hardware is announced. And there's no way they will announce hardware several months ahead of a launch (anymore), and it seems unlikely they switch back to July hardware launches. So there doesn't seem to be a good way for them to announce NFC months ahead. They might spill it to key partners like Visa et al, but not the developer peons.