A restaurant-couponing app developed by a tiny startup based in Greenwich, Conn., appeared today in the Android Market store, believed to be the first commercial NFC app for new Android phones in what observers predict will become a flood of new services for the smartphones.
The "Enable Table" app uses the tag-reading capability of the Nexus S and other Android phones expected on the market this year supporting the latest version of the Google-owned operating system, Android 2.3, called Gingerbread. There are no merchants equipped yet with tags, however.
But the electronic-couponing service will be the first of many NFC-enabled apps designed for Android, predict observers. Android is an open-source operating system and Google is less restrictive in accepting new apps than Apple, which in any event does not yet support NFC with its iPhone, though that appears likely in the future.