We have heard a lot about NFC (Near Field Communication) over the past year although haven’t really been able to figure out how it would be used until now. We did however know that it was primarily for making payments with your mobile device but there is so much more to this new little technology.
NFC has been brought to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich in the form of “Android Beam” allowing people to not only make payments from their enabled device but also transfer information. All you have to do is simply tap two NFC enabled devices to share almost any information on the device. Some of the items that can be shared are youtube videos, contact information, maps, websites, and even apps.
When using the Beam features there are a few things that you have to keep in mind. The most important thing to remember is that both of the devices have to be unlocked, if either the device you are sending from or sending to are locked the transfer will fail.
How to Use Android Beam:
- Make sure both devices are unlocked
- Touch both devices back to back
- Wait for a sound notifying you that beam is connected
- You will then see “Touch to Beam” on your device
- Touch the item on your screen and it will show on the other screen
Keep in mind that when lining up a phone and a tablet you will need to move it around a bit to find the exact spot they need to be “back to back”, just touching them is not enough if the connection is not close enough.
With Android Beam’s use of near field communication we can easily use many of the features that we have had to activate bluetooth to use without the battery drain. We are excited to test out this new feature and are glad that Google also released the SDK (software development kit) along side this feature to allow developers to get creative with it from the start.