I’m creating a mobile application that fetched data based on ID which generated on PC. I want to pass this ID as a text string from my NFC device which supports read and write to an iPhone device when the user touch on the NFC device. Is this possible? I’m using Acr 122u as an NFC device.
2 Answers
The short answer is it is not possible with iOS
There are 3 basic modes of operation of NFC devices - Reader/Writer, Peer to Peer and Host Card emulation (HCE).
iOS only supports Reader/Writer for developers (though HCE is used by Apple for their wallet stuff)
Android supports Reader/Writer, Host Card Emulation and Peer to Peer (Up to Android 10 when it was removed)
Most USB readers I've seen only support Reader/Writer.
To use NFC without a real NFC Card
Both devices must support Peer to Peer
Or
One must support Reader/Writer and the other must support Host Card Emulation.

- 8,198
- 2
- 15
- 35
-
Thanks Andrew for your details explanation. So it's could be possible if the Card Reader/Writer supports Card Emulation right? I mean we changed the NFC device to an emulated card, and let IOS phone be a reader to read data from this device. I – Tuan Ngo Apr 08 '20 at 09:13
-
Yes if you find a PC Card Reader/Writer that also supports Host Card Emulation then with the right programming (which is more complicated than reading/writing) you could achieve your goal. – Andrew Apr 08 '20 at 09:33
-
It seems the ACR1252U USB reader supports HCE is https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33695891/accessing-card-emulation-mode-on-usb-nfc-reader – Andrew Apr 08 '20 at 13:51
-
1Any update as of 2023 January? – sandulasanth-7 Jan 02 '23 at 06:18
From iOS 13 SDK apple add NFC for read tag and you can use NDEF
type message.
refer to this link for more sample code https://developer.apple.com/documentation/corenfc/building_an_nfc_tag-reader_app

- 4,189
- 3
- 16
- 29
-
1Thanks Mac3n! Yes from Apple development site they said that we can read data from NFC tag. But how about read data from NFC device. Sorry i’m pretty new about NFC, so may be the question still so generic. – Tuan Ngo Apr 07 '20 at 05:47
-
I believe if the device support `NDEF` you can handle it through the device too – Mac3n Apr 07 '20 at 05:48
-
Thank you Mac, I'm researching more details about this, and seem to we need to do some stuff at NFC device to make it work in Emulation mode as Andrew shared. – Tuan Ngo Apr 08 '20 at 09:17