Vcard on xSIID done!

But are you able to save that in iOS?

Beats me. I donā€™t have any Apple product. I guess if you want to test if iOS reads it and does something useful with it, and you have a NTAG 216 or larger lying around, all it takes is writing the vcard to the tag and presenting it to the iPhone.

EDIT: I have a feeling I didnā€™t post this in the right thread. I just realized itā€™s about iPhones. Sorry :slight_smile:

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But still to answer this, no. iOS does not support Vcards over NFC. As a workaround you can host it on a website, and put the link as an NDEF record.

Tested with a placeholder card, clicking the link will open safari then pop over with the contact card, theres a button there to save it to contacts.

Makes sense, but how are you hosting it, thatā€™s the special sauce Iā€™m lacking

Well, to be fair to Apple, itā€™s highly non-standard. Android happens to support it, but they donā€™t have to, and they donā€™t have to do it that way either.

Grab linktree

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Pick your poison. I have my own web hosting for my website so its just a file there. You could share it on Dropbox, post it to github, any number of file sharing websites.

If you combine it with linktree like Devil suggested it makes for a very clean result

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Iā€™m a fan of the tappy card and linktree - type layouts. They are pretty similar.

Just one more quick point, using a URL is a workaround, and it depends on the other phone having an active internet connection. Thatā€™s a fair trade off for me, but something to keep in mind.

Also something I noticed when I was creating my vcf file, the one my Android phone exported would not work on iPhones, and the one I made for iPhones did not work on my Android device. I had to generate an iphone compatible vcf file I think version 4.0 from a website. My Android phone only accepted the vcf file version 2.1. I then took both files and hosted them on my website, made a landing page for different information I wanted to share, and had to create 2 separate links to download my contact card for iOS and for Android. Definitely not ideal but a good work around for now.

If anyone knows a vcf version or format that works across both OSā€™s please let me know.

Iā€™m hoping once the new version of iOS launches and iPhone 12 is out there will be more compatibility for NFC reading, being Apple seems to be putting focus on this now.

vCard 2.1 is the least common denominator. Everything under the sun that understands vCards reads it. Subsequent versionsā€¦ well, the higher you go, the more of a crapshoot it becomes. Since there is no technical advantage and little informational advantage offered by later versions, you can safely and happily default to 2.1 for best compatibility.

I added the details i wanted to a new contact on iOS, then chose Share Contact -> Save to Files. Itā€™s worked perfectly on every device Iā€™ve tried so far.

Whatā€™s a good way to host the files? I donā€™t have my own website like others

I think I tried a direct google drive link and it wonā€™t work correctly, because it makes you jump they the google hoops before giving you the file

A couple of posts above
@Devilclarke and @rvenfrost suggest something like tappy card and linktr.ee for this purpose

I initially hated the ā€œlanding pageā€ concept, but the tappy looked nice enough and brought me aroundā€¦ pulled the trigger on a tsppy

Do Tappy or Linktree act as redirectors? Or said another way, do the links they sell point to a Tappy or Linktree server?

I kind of understand the Tappy business: they sell business cards really. The linking thing they tie the cards to is kind of trivial. But Linktree? I donā€™t get it. Direct links areā€¦ well, there. And if you need a redirector, there are plenty of them out there that are completely free.

Can a Tappy or Linktree user explain what service you get for the money exactly?

Way I look at it, I paid for a simple single url I can link to that has quickly accessible links

Okay so they sell you a bit of space to put more links in. Thatā€™s a service.

Linktree donā€™t sell you anything physical, just a link redirector that holds multiple links.

Instagram only allows one URL in your bio, so it was created as a ā€˜solutionā€™ to that mainly for companies and brands that want to redirect you EVERYWHERE.

They offer a free plan with their logo at the bottom to get you hooked and establish themselves as the standard on Instagram, then offer a paid plan when you want to customise it to match your brand, or the marketing team want better analytics on what links are clicked.

tappyā€™s is tied to a physical card as well which has NFC and a QR code for older iphones. Itā€™s not necessary, but it has come in handy for me already. Itā€™s nothing super fancy, but I liked their web layout enough to pay for it and figured it would be a handy backup if I A) decide to link my implant to something else or B) canā€™t get it (the implant) to work for some reason.

I saw it as me paying to be lazy and have a nice neat setup that I didnā€™t have to make if we are being real.

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