If you’ve been keeping an eye on the Apple / NFC love story you will note that it’s been a long time coming since Apple has enabled NFC on any of their phones, and only then many of them will only enable NFC for their proprietary Apple pay system. Many models need an app if you want to read NFC labels.
Is Apple catching up to Android?
Almost, but not quite. Android has had NFC baked into their system for a long time now and the ability to read and write NFC labels has been enjoyed by Android users for many years. With the release of the Xs and Xr models of iPhones, Apple is creeping up to Android levels of usability, but not quite.
Whilst the Xs and Xr models of phones will be able to read NFC labels without the need of an app, you won’t be able to write NFC tags, even if you do have an NFC writing app like the NFC Easiwayv Tools.
Want to write NFC labels? Stick with Android
At this stage, it looks like if you want to be able to write to NFC labels you’re going to have to stick with Android phones for the moment. In saying that Apple is edging closer and closer to being able to write NFC tags from their range of phones.
What iPhone models can read NFC tags?
Currently, you will need an App to be able to read NFC with:-
- iPhone 8
- iPhone X
You will be able to read NFC natively with the:-
- iPhone XS
- iPhone XS Max
- iPhone XR
If you’re wanting to write or encode NFC labels with your phone you will need to purchase an Android phone or use our Bulk NFC Encoding Service.