NFC Tap iOS app vs. NFC Tap Android app and FTM

[Mariano1]

We are developing both an Android and iOS app that leverages FTM from the ST25DV chip.

In the Android version of the NFC Tap app, we can send custom commands and interact with FTM. However, in the iOS app, there is no "send custom command" screen. I know in iOS there is a section for FTM where you can send pictures and files, but why is this functionality missing from the iOS app.

More to the point... Can we send custom commands in iOS that leverages FTM mode? Our iOS developer has been struggling for months to get this to work. Can someone please confirm that sending custom commands and FTM is supported in iOS.

Thanks in advance.

Mariano

[victor laraison]

Hi again MFerr,

Please, have a look into V3.9 iOS NFC Tap Release : https://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/products/embedded-software/st25-nfc-rfid-software/stsw-st25ios001.html

We have updated the iOS NFC Tap with the possibility to send custom command in "coreNFC" submenu, with the custom code and custom parameters.

Unfortunately, we only display command return status after execution. We "re delivering a new release in next few days displaying data received.

Please, as we re in dev process , we still have time to implement something missing if needed. Let me know.

Regarding FTM, I don't catch your point : FTM is already supported in iOS NFC tap with multiple use cases (Data transfer , picture up/down load, FW update, ...). Please , could you clarify more ?

Thx and br

[Mariano1]

Hi Victor,

Thank you for the response and it is great to hear that the NFC Tap app now supports sending custom commands. We have been using the Android version quite extensively (We even hacked the open source version to tailor the screens and functionality to our needs). Based on the Android app, I would graciously suggest the following improvements in order of priority:

1. Allow the response displayed in the "Tag response" input field to be abled to be copied. It is important for us to copy the response, so that we can parse the response in our own program. Having the response field read-only greatly limits the use of displaying the response. In addition, if the response is large (say 256 Bytes), in the Android app, you only see the first three lines of data, which makes it less useful and impossible to debug because you don't know what was the full response.
2. A very nice to have would be to support reading the entire mailbox. Currently, in Android and iOS, the app reads one message at a time. If the response is larger than 256 bytes, you have to hit the send button multiple times to empty the mailbox. I could imagine including a checkbox that when enabled, would read the entire mailbox. NOTE: We found out the hard way, that if you append the response after every read to the "Tag response" input field it really slows down the entire process. Our solution was to save the response to a variable and when the mailbox was empty we would then populate the "Tag Response" field with the full response message.

Those would be my two suggestions for both Android and iOS. We also noticed in Android, if you send a custom command with lower case characters, that we receive an error. This may be an issue specific to our firmware implementation, but I thought I would mention it. It took a while to figure that out.

Finally regarding FTM, I now understand it works with iOS. Please disregard this question.

Thanks,

Mariano

[victor laraison · Accepted solution]

Hi Mariano,

I agree with you for the 2 suggestions : I will include them into dev for next iOS NFC Tap release that should be delivered in March. . At least for iOS...

I forward your request to our Android Team.

glad to hear you that FTM is understood in iOS.

Br,