Re: [web-nfc] Consider dropping peer for MVP (#166)

Mark,

Out of interest, if all you need to do is pass a url from one device to another why do you need to use Nfc?  Surely you could just display the url encoded as a QR Code on the device screen so it can be scanned by another device?  It might even be a simpler solution.  The train system in the UK uses that design.

Steve



Sent from my Samsung device


-------- Original message --------
From: "Mark R.James via GitHub" <sysbot+gh@w3.org>
Date: 30/11/2018 20:15 (GMT+00:00)
To: public-web-nfc@w3.org
Subject: Re: [web-nfc] Consider dropping peer for MVP (#166)

My application is for a phone that's running a WebNFC-enabled browser to tap another phone to pass it a URL to which to browse.

When I joined the development group for WebNFC more than three years ago, I expected peer-to-peer to be its main focus, since it's used so much for payments, and passive tags a secondary implementation. I've been astonished that it's been the other way around, and that implementation of peer-to-peer has been delayed, and now possibly dropped. I've had to patch in QR Code support in my app to tide me over.

The alternative of the Web Share API triggering Android Beam is inadequate:

1. It only shares the URL of the invoking page. The URL set in the share call is ignored, so arbitrary URLs can't be shared,
2. It requires the user make the extra step of choosing NFC delivery,
3. The share must be triggered by a user action, and
4. The share must be from an SSL page, which is annoying for development.

Is there an alternative?

Is it really that difficult to implement peer-to-peer WebNFC on Chrome on Android, or are there security concerns, or just a belief that there's no demand? I know an implementation has been substantially written, and that the Chrome team planned to fully implement this "after we ship Generic Sensor APIs", which I believe happened in March or April. Has this now been abandoned?

Here is the original WebNFC Issue discussing peer-to-peer support: #139

And here is the Chromium bug for WebNFC issues, where I've asked about peer-to-peer: https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbugs.chromium.org%2Fp%2Fchromium%2Fissues%2Fdetail%3Fid%3D520391&amp;data=02%7C01%7C%7Cd3addaf590b74fdaca4108d6570085f1%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636792057082671371&amp;sdata=x3sABE8S%2FI7ALBtW04Gv8cyhU6tWMVeOJBuW0Oqw5lc%3D&amp;reserved=0


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