Near-Field Communication Tags, also commonly known as NFC Tags, are small chips that have an antenna that enables wireless communication between devices. This technology allows devices to exchange information when brought within a few centimetres of each other
NFC Tags were first used in the field of mobile phones with the Nokia C7 when it was released in 2010 however the NFC Tag within the phone was not enabled for use until a software update in 2011. Apple only added them to the iPhone with the release of the iPhone 6 in 2014 which allowed users the use of Apple Pay which had not previously been available to iPhone users and this is the same technology that allows bank cards to now be contactless.
Since 2014 Apple has continually added additional functionality for the use of NFC Tags through the release of their newer IOS updates as well as the newer iPhone models themselves. In IOS 17 the update added functionality for NFC use that was described as “NameDrop lets you exchange contact information with someone new by bringing your iPhones close together” and a “New way to initiate AirDrop allows you to share content or start a SharePlay session over AirDrop by bringing your iPhones close together”.
I think that the use of NFC Tags is a really useful emerging technology that has some pretty cool applications as you can code them to do a whole range of things outside just the applications that we see used in our mobile phone’s airdrop and contact sharing capabilities. The use of NFC Tags that stood out to me was when I was signing a tenancy at the estate agents the other day and they asked the group signing the tenancy to leave a Google review for their business and pulled out a card that they tapped on our phones that took our mobile browser straight to their Google review page. The uses for these cards in business like this are endless and could also be pushed out into charities when fundraising to take people to a donation page or something like that.
The technology has slowly been coming more frequently used in different ways over the last thirteen years since it was first released in a mobile phone and I feel that the uses and complexity of the applications of NFC Tags will definitely grow even more into the future.
