NFC Apps Are Starting to Pop Up, Third-Party SDKs Available
Near Field Communications: it’s not the most common here in the states yet, but Google’s trying to promote it and it looks like a few app developers are anticipating its widespread use. One app called EnableTable enables a restaurant to entice their customers with deals and coupons to keep coming back. With each check, a user would wave their phone over the check book and it would pull in a coupon for their next visit. Not bad at all.
“Welcome Back Coupons arrive at the end of the meal and reward repeat business,” says EnableTable’s Kevin Gallagher. “The best way to build sustainable business is to recognize loyal customers and NFC technology accurately pinpoints loyal customers inside the restaurant.”
Then there’s Taglet, a Japanese app that is designed to help you get around the Nexus S’s current read-only limitation. Google and NXP says this limitation will be lifted with future updates, though, so I’m not sure how useful it’ll ultimately end up being. Here’s a video demo of it, regardless:
And we’re hearing third party outlets are dishing out SDKs to help you take advantage of the Nexus S’s – and hopefully future Android phones’ – NFC capabilities. If you’re an app developer and want to give that a shot, check out Mobifyer – looks cheap enough to get started without worry of the technology not taking off. [via NFC World]