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Apple joins the NFC party, providing iOS developers the ability to read NFC tags

developer.ibm.com

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Re: Apple joins the NFC party, providing iOS developers the ability to read NFC tags

#31

Post by maratc »

ben1040 wrote: post #29
maratc wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading NFC transit passes doesn't sound too exciting. I mean, if a phone has an NFC chip, why not use the phone (plus an app) instead of a transit pass, tapping with your phone where you're expected to tap with your pass? This is like your phone wouldn't come with a music player, but would come with a full-fledged oscillograph instead.

There is this Android app that allows you to read your transit pass to check the balance. It's pretty handy with a Clipper Card, for example. http://codebutler.github.io/farebot/ That said Chicago seems to have the most convenient system along the lines of what you're talking about -- you can use plain old tap and pay at the terminal with Apple Pay or Android Pay.

Reading balance is not too exciting, as I said. There doesn't seem to be any Android apps to let your phone function as a transit pass.

I understand why it would be cool to let your phone replace your transit pass (as it's cool to let your phone replace your credit card), but I don't understand why it's cool to let your phone replace a transit pass reader.

Re: Apple joins the NFC party, providing iOS developers the ability to read NFC tags

#32

Post by stormbrew »

givinguflac wrote: post #13

Neat, but I've yet to see a single NFC use case that gets me anywhere near as excited as this author. Amiibo is a cool concept but obviously limited. I've used some writable tags for android settings changes and such years ago, but it just doesn't seem useful to me. Anyone know a killer use case I'm missing here?

I think the thing is that uses of NFC tags aren't and shouldn't really be expected to be individually mind blowing. It's just something that can, in aggregate, make your life more pleasant by small increments that add up.

Being able to read my balance on my clipper card with my android phone is something I miss since switching to ios. A promising thing I once used was wifi network ssid/password settings stored on an nfc tag on a wall (think restaurant).

But, really, if there's a killer app it's probably payment and it's rolling out. Pretending that it's somehow distinct from other NFC use cases is pretty silly. It's just one of the most obvious ways it can be useful.

Re: Apple joins the NFC party, providing iOS developers the ability to read NFC tags

#33

Post by wastedhours »

This opens up quite a few interesting ideas in the real world gaming arena. I know it's been possible with Android, but cross platform real world treasure hunt games are something I've thought a lot about, and this could make it easier than having to do GPS bounding or use BLE.

Re: Apple joins the NFC party, providing iOS developers the ability to read NFC tags

#34

Post by giobox »

djrogers wrote: post #28
spilk wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And probably paranoia that it would interfere with Apple Pay

Apple Pay uses NFC - how would it interfere?

I suspect spilk is referring to concerns Apple will probably have had internally about rival payment platforms using the iPhone NFC hardware to process payments instead of Apple Pay. I'd be extremely surprised if debates about this didn't come up when they were deciding how to build the public API for the feature, and is probably a huge factor in the API being read only and not supporting card emulation, for now.

Re: Apple joins the NFC party, providing iOS developers the ability to read NFC tags

#35

Post by brad0 »

givinguflac wrote: post #13

Neat, but I've yet to see a single NFC use case that gets me anywhere near as excited as this author. Amiibo is a cool concept but obviously limited. I've used some writable tags for android settings changes and such years ago, but it just doesn't seem useful to me. Anyone know a killer use case I'm missing here?

I worked on some prototypes years ago on android that handled a payment from a contactless bank card on your phone.

So in the payments space:

- phone as a payment terminal

- peer to peer payments

I'm sure there's more than that but they're the low hanging fruit

Re: Apple joins the NFC party, providing iOS developers the ability to read NFC tags

#36

Post by cwyers »

maratc wrote: post #31
ben1040 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is this Android app that allows you to read your transit pass to check the balance. It's pretty handy with a Clipper Card, for example. http://codebutler.github.io/farebot/ That said Chicago seems to have the most convenient system along the lines of what you're talking about -- you can use plain old tap and pay at the terminal with Apple Pay or Android Pay.

Reading balance is not too exciting, as I said. There doesn't seem to be any Android apps to let your phone function as a transit pass. I understand why it would be cool to let your phone replace your transit pass (as it's cool to let your phone replace your credit card), but I don't understand why it's cool to let your phone replace a transit pass reader.

Because I own a phone and not a transit pass reader?

Re: Apple joins the NFC party, providing iOS developers the ability to read NFC tags

#37

Post by ben1040 »

maratc wrote: post #31
ben1040 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is this Android app that allows you to read your transit pass to check the balance. It's pretty handy with a Clipper Card, for example. http://codebutler.github.io/farebot/ That said Chicago seems to have the most convenient system along the lines of what you're talking about -- you can use plain old tap and pay at the terminal with Apple Pay or Android Pay.

Reading balance is not too exciting, as I said. There doesn't seem to be any Android apps to let your phone function as a transit pass. I understand why it would be cool to let your phone replace your transit pass (as it's cool to let your phone replace your credit card), but I don't understand why it's cool to let your phone replace a transit pass reader.

Because I often forget how much I have on my card, and tapping my card is easier than logging into the web portal.

Re: Apple joins the NFC party, providing iOS developers the ability to read NFC tags

#38

Post by MBCook »

brad0 wrote: post #35
givinguflac wrote: post #13

Neat, but I've yet to see a single NFC use case that gets me anywhere near as excited as this author. Amiibo is a cool concept but obviously limited. I've used some writable tags for android settings changes and such years ago, but it just doesn't seem useful to me. Anyone know a killer use case I'm missing here?

I worked on some prototypes years ago on android that handled a payment from a contactless bank card on your phone. So in the payments space: - phone as a payment terminal - peer to peer payments I'm sure there's more than that but they're the low hanging fruit

Unfortunately it's read only so that stuff won't be coming to iOS.

Re: Apple joins the NFC party, providing iOS developers the ability to read NFC tags

#39

Post by jseliger »

givinguflac wrote: post #13

Neat, but I've yet to see a single NFC use case that gets me anywhere near as excited as this author. Amiibo is a cool concept but obviously limited. I've used some writable tags for android settings changes and such years ago, but it just doesn't seem useful to me. Anyone know a killer use case I'm missing here?

Most modern cameras have, for the last couple years, used NFC to quickly and easily transmit photos from the camera to the phone. From what I understand, on Android this works pretty effectively.

On iOS, however, weak NFC implementation means that one must use a kind of janky WiFi transfer system. It works, but it's kind of difficult to use and not very elegant.

Re: Apple joins the NFC party, providing iOS developers the ability to read NFC tags

#40

Post by giobox »

astrodust wrote: post #19
Fej wrote: post #2

What took so long?

Standards, plus thinking Low-Power BlueTooth might supplant it.

I'd almost completely forgotten Apple tried to push their iBeacon standard, arguably in competition to NFC in many ways. If I'm honest, my expectations for NFC lighting the world on fire with iOS support have been severely tempered by the huge number of articles/businesses/startups that proclaimed iBeacons where the next big thing. I've still never encountered them in the wild outside of Apple stores or friends who bought iBeacon hardware for hacking personal projects.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBeacon

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