Preface

Mobile technologies are constantly changing, providing users with faster and better ways to interact with the world. Devices and applications have become increasingly powerful and new technologies are continually emerging—near field communication (NFC) is one of them. Its low battery consumption and simplicity are the key factors determining its future success. From facilitating daily tasks, such as opening a website, gaining access control, and making instant payments, NFC is now being used everywhere. Features such as peer-to-peer communication, cross-device data exchange, social network content sharing, and improved gaming experiences can be achieved using NFC.

The book begins by introducing the virtual development environment that allows you to develop NFC-enabled applications without the need of a smartphone or tags. Next, this book presents simple and functional examples that explain the basic concepts of detecting, writing, and reading data from a tag. All of the presented features and techniques are then used in a more complex application to give you a better idea of how you can use NFC in a real application.

In this book, you will learn how to use different components and features, such as working with the Foreground Dispatch System, using the NFC data exchange format and the Android application record, reading and writing a URI, creating text and customizing mime NDEF messages, and so on. This book provides readers with both theoretical and practical knowledge as we progress through the recipes and explain the relevant concepts.

Toward the end of this book, the recipes will show you various ways to use NFC so that you will be pumped to start developing amazing NFC applications.