To follow the last post I thought I would quickly round it off by looking at the code required to listen for tags on a Windows 8/RT device. Devices with NFC built in are like hens teeth but one such RT device exists in the Asus VivoTab RT. Because it’s an RT device that means running the Remote Debugger and doing the development on a separate Windows 8 PC. The problem with the Windows 8/RT experience is it is not as set in stone as Windows Phone and so issues like this occur (http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/tailoringappsfordevices/thread/9da68387-e0cb-4e02-ac71-bad61f6ff7c6) where some devices don’t correctly advertise support for all tag types. The good news with the Asus is that it does support subscribing to NDEF messages and you can use the same code as in my previous Windows Phone example to read a Text tag. The same Ndef library is used as this supports both Windows 8/RT and Windows Phone 8.
One thing which is a little frustrating when remote debugging is that you have to register for a developer license on the tablet before the debug session will continue. So even though you have a license on your development machine you also need one on the tablet (despite the fact you can’t actually compile an app on it). There doesn’t seem to be a limit to how many devices you can register for a license using your Microsoft ID so this shouldn’t become a problem. You will find that you have to renew it regularly though…
In a future post we will delve into other tag types…
In The Hand Ltd 