Author: Mike Hearn 2014-03-07 10:00:21
Published on: 2014-03-07T10:00:21+00:00
The discussion on the Bitcoin-development mailing list involves the use of host card emulation (HCE) feature, which emulates a ISO-DEP Smartcard and processes ISO7816-4 APDU commands like a Smartcard would do. The HCE API on Android 4.4 allows any app that registers itself for HCE and sets its category to CATEGORY_PAYMENT in the Manifest automatically shows up in Android's system settings under "Tap & Pay". However, the screen must be on already for NFC to be active, although it can be locked. There is also some uncertainty about what happens if multiple Bitcoin wallet apps are doing the same thing and everything else gets dumped into CATEGORY_OTHER. Nonetheless, Bitcoin does not need to emulate smartcards as there is no pre-existing infrastructure, and it can just use a regular non-smarcard-emulation ISO-DEP protocol. It may be necessary to add some disambiguation code on top, inside the apps themselves.
Updated on: 2023-06-08T14:19:11.751760+00:00