While many parts of NFC have been standardized by the NFC Forum, the level of platform and developer API support varies.
This document helps you decide which technologies you can use to achieve a maximum cross-platform NFC use case, as well as if it’s possible to implement your idea on a specific target platform.
The document has been compiled by Andreas Jakl and Michael Roland. It is based on our own testing and is no official platform support list. As such, we tried our best to make it as accurate as possible; if you have any corrections or additions, please get in contact with us!
Click the “View full-size workbook” link in the lower right corner to open the document in full screen mode.
If the Excel 2013 Web App doesn’t work with your browser, you can also download the PDF version of the NFC Developer Comparison.
Included Platforms
- Android
- Windows 8 / Windows Phone 8
- Qt on Symbian
- Qt on Nokia N9 (MeeGo Harmattan)
- Symbian Native
- Blackberry 7.1
- Blackberry 10
Compared Items
- Peer-to-peer
SNEP, NPP (Google NDEF Push Protocol) and LLCP - Tags
Type 1 – 4 NDEF access
Type 1 – 4 direct commands
MIFARE Classic NDEF
MIFARE Classic direct commands (incl. security)
MIFARE Classic UID (no data, only serial number)
ISO 14443-4
ISO 14443-3
FeliCa (JIS X 6319-4)
ISO 15693
ISO 15693 NDEF
KOVIO NFC Barcode
Locking tags
NDEF Formatting - Software card emulation
Emulation of NDEF tags
Emulation of ISO 14443-4 Type A targetsEmulation of ISO 14443-4 Type B targets
Emulation of ISO 14443-3 Type A targets
Emulation of ISO 14443-3 Type B targets
Emulation of FeliCa (JIS X 6319-4) targets - NDEF Parsing API
Smart Poster
URI
Text
Microsoft LaunchApp
Android Application Record
External (general)
MIME (general) - Default handling of NFC record types on different OS platforms
Launching apps
Installing + launching apps
URI
Smart Poster
Text
SMS
Telephone
vCard (business cards)
vCal (calender entries)
geo: URI scheme
Handover (for Bluetooth)