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Samsung releases TecTiles 2 NFC tags for Galaxy S 4, available for $15 today
Remember Samsung's TecTiles NFC-enabled stickers? Well, much to our dismay, they don't work with the company's flashy new handset, and Galaxy S 4 owners haven't had an alternative to stock up on until today. Samsung's new TecTiles 2, which can perform tasks similar to the smartphone maker's previous-generation product, are now available, priced at $15 for a pack of five. They're compatible with all Samsung NFC-enabled Android smartphones, and offer up a variety of functions, such as muting your device when you tap a tag in the boardroom, or checking you in on Foursquare by touching a TecTile in a restaurant, for example. The small square stickers can now be ordered on Samsung's website -- if you'd prefer to pick them up in store, you'll need to hang tight until June.
Samsung offers free flip covers and TecTiles for GS III and Note II device registrations
If you just received a Galaxy S III or a Note II this holiday season, you could do yourself a favor and register it on Samsung's Facebook page to get even more goodies from Santa Sammy. What do you get in exchange for handing over some personal details and giving the Korean company access to your timeline? Why, a free flip cover and six TecTiles, which usually go for about $15 for a pack of five. We haven't heard much about wide adoption of these programmable NFC tags, but maybe it'll gain some traction after a recent 3.0 app update and this promotional giveaway. We're not sure why the offer doesn't extend to other Samsung phones, but maybe they just don't have enough of those pastel covers to go around.
Samsung TecTiles 3.0 update offers more options for NFC tagging, now available in Play Store
Samsung's NFC tagging app -- known as TecTiles -- made its official debut in June, but the company isn't putting a halt to its progression anytime soon. This morning Sammy announced version 3.0 of the app, which includes various enhancements that allow for better customization. Among the new features, you can choose from a larger selection of settings that can be programmed into the tags, and you'll also have the ability to send pre-written emails to a specified address, update your Google+ status, store a history of your profiles, customize preloaded profiles and create private tags that can only be read by your phone. The new refresh is ready to go in the Play Store, so head on over to download it for free -- provided, of course, you've forked over $15 for a pack of five tags. The press release, along with a full list of supported devices, can be found past the break.
TecTiles: programmable NFC stickers for select members of Samsung's Galaxy
NFC's a curious thing. That once heavily buzzed about feature's found a home in many of the handsets that occupy Android's swiftly rotating throne, but eager users wielding those enabled devices haven't been given much to do with it. Visa's payWave aside, Samsung's finally cooked up a means of making the near field tech a more integrated and efficient aspect of our modern lives -- well, the lives of other Galaxy S III, Galaxy S II (T-Mobile only), Galaxy Nexus, Nexus S 4G and Galaxy S Blaze 4G owners, to be precise. Enter: TecTiles. In tandem with its flagship's impending US launch, the company's going to be offering packs of branded NFC stickers at retail that can be programmed with useful actions and placed wherever adhesive is welcome. Need to set up a seamless Foursquare check-in for your place of business, leave a message on the fridge for members of your family, effortlessly transfer your contact info or even silence your phone automatically at a meeting? That's where Sammy's stickers come in handy, sidestepping the multitude of taps it normally takes to enter data or navigate a mobile UI with a simple close encounter of the NFC kind. If the implementation sounds eerily familiar, that's because you may have seen it before in the form of Smart Tags -- Sony's own spin on the communication tech. As you might imagine, there's an app to manage each individual TecTile's settings that will be made available after an initial pairing. And, according to one of the company's reps, each unlocked sticker can be programmed up to 100,000 times, a high enough ceiling that should get you plenty of mileage, glue willing. Naturally, there's a limit to this initial rollout's NFC-love and that's where things could get pricey, given that each TecTile can currently carry only one function at a time. Plans are underway, however, to expand beyond this limitation by enabling multi-functions in future iterations of the tacky tech -- whenever version 2.0 touches down. For now, though, you'll have to make frugal use of the stickers, considering they'll be marked at $15 for a pack of five. So, if you're still standing undecided on a Galaxy S III purchase despite its litany of capabilities, then this long-overdue feature could very well prove to be the wallet-tipping point. %Gallery-158101%
