Google has added new near-field communications capabilities to Android 2.3, aka “Gingerbread,” via a small feature release, version 2.3.3. NFC lets consumers use their mobile devices make purchases and exchange data with other devices, among other things. The new features include a comprehensive NFC read/write API that lets apps read and write to most standard NFC tags in use today. It also has support for limited peer-to-peer connection with other NFC devices. Google’s tweak comes amidst rumors about Apple planning to include NFC support in the forthcoming iPhone 5.
