We first took a look at NFC Toolkit in early November. The app allows users to take control of the NFC abilities on their Windows Phone. While NFC support on Windows Phone is currently limited compared to the options available on Android, NFC Toolkit does the best it can to help users maximize the potential. The app has seen two updates since we last covered it, let’s take a look at what’s new with the app.
The app is currently sitting at version 0.9.7.0 in the Windows Phone Store, but there was an update between our initial coverage (0.9.6.0) and now. What was introduced in in that update? The following:
- Corrected custom profile bug where the 4th and the 5th item were the same
- Added Mix Play & Share as new extra
- Added a simple car dashboard as new extra
- About page updated
- Privacy policy updated
- Minor bug fixes
And today we’re looking at version 0.9.7.0 in the Windows Phone Store. That update includes the following changes to NFC Toolkit:
- Fixed error in car dashboard when no album cover is available
- Added battery saver to custom profile
- Added rotation lock to custom profile
- Added launch extra to profiles
- Added launch app to profiles
NFC Toolkit picks up some cool tricks with the latest updates. However, Windows Phone itself needs to step up its game if we’re to have a truly stellar NFC experience on Windows Phone. For example, developers are only able to take you to a setting page vs. actually changing the settings for you. Hopefully Windows Phone 8.1 will introduce such capabilities for developers. In the meantime, other devs can make their app a little more NFC friendly by giving their apps a custom URI scheme. Our app, WPCentral, has such a scheme and therefore you can set up an NFC profile that launches our app. Interested in adding a custom URI scheme to your app? Check out this blog post on how to do it.
NFC Toolkit is a pretty stellar app for the NFC things Windows Phone can do and it’s on sale from now until a day after Christmas. Normally it goes for $1.49, but now you can pick it up for $0.99 in the Windows Phone Store. There is a trial that lets you use the app for 10 days.
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