Android 2.3.3 Platform, New NFC Capabilities

Several weeks ago Google released Android 2.3, which introduced several new forms of communication for developers and users. One of those, Near Field Communications (NFC), let developers get started creating a new class of contactless, proximity-based applications for users.

What is Near Field Communications?

NFC is an emerging technology that promises exciting new ways to use mobile devices, including ticketing, advertising, ratings, and even data exchange with other devices. Google think there’s a strong interest to include these capabilities into many applications, so they announced an update to Android 2.3 that adds new NFC capabilities for developers.

The Features

• A comprehensive NFC reader/writer API that lets apps read and write to almost any standard NFC tag in use today.
• Advanced Intent dispatching that gives apps more control over how/when they are launched when an NFC tag comes into range.
• Some limited support for peer-to-peer connection with other NFC devices.

Available through the Android SDK Manager

Android 2.3.3 is a small feature release that includes a new API level, 10. The Android 2.3.3 SDK platform for development and testing is available through the Android SDK Manager.