At last, after 2-3 years, the camera industry seems to have embraced NFC. All high(er)-end models that have Wi-Fi also have NFC (except for some - for example, the Panasonic GM1 - that just couldn't incorporate it for size reasons). I really really doubt the same will happen to a proprietary technology (Apple's iBeacon). At least not in the next 2-3 years again, camera manufacturers have traditionally been pretty slow at incorporating wireless technologies in their cameras.
NFC works just great and is a godsend for very fast, tap-less and seamless image transfers. Because of my absolutely great experience with NFC, my next enthusiast higher-end camera will surely be an NFC-capable one (the Sony A6000, unless it gets a bad review from DPReview).
Just an example on how easier it is compared to other techniques: when not having any of my dedicated cameras around, I currently shoot with the Nokia PureView 808. (The best cameraphone even now.) As it only has a small 4" screen, it's not really suited for reviewing images, particularly not when I also have the wife around. Fortunately, the 808 supports not only true Bluetooth, but also NFC. If I also have the NFC-enabled (and pretty decent) Nexus 7 2013 around, I can transfer the image to it in no time, with VERY little effort. All this without having to run any dedicated apps on either devices or even having to be in constant Wi-Fi connection with them (as is required by several Wi-Fi cameras not using NFC for quick image transfers.)
I only need to either go to the review mode from the camera app after taking a shot (one tap) or fire up the stock Gallery app and select the image I want to transfer. Then, just bump the two devices together and the transfer immediately starts without any more human interaction. Finally, after the transfer finishes, I just drag down the history menu and tap the Beam complete Touch to view menu item, followed by selecting the app (one tap) to view the image. That's one tap on the 808 (sender) after shooting an image and two taps on the N7 (receiver) to display it.
What does happen without NFC but I can still use Bluetooth - for example, with a jailbroken iDevice with the absolutely essential AirBlue Sharing JB app installed? A LOT more tapping is needed:
- on the sender (808), tap the image to display the menu, select the menu, select Send, select Via Bluetooth, select target device. That's five taps (and also an additional one if you want to get to the image review screen after shooting it just like with the NFC case).
- on the receiver iDevice, first, activate the receive mode of AirBlue Sharing. If you haven't defined any Activator action for this, this means the following taps: 1, tap the AirBlue Sharing icon, 2, tap Enable Receiving in the menu on the left. Then, after the sender discovers the iDevice and requests transfer, allow the transfer on the iDevice. (Fortunately, if you select Accept All, you won't need to do this during subsequent transfers.) Then, assuming you enable automatic Camera Roll import, tap the Imported to Camera Roll message. The latter will only start the Photos app but won't take you directly to the just-imported image; not even into the Camera Roll album. You need to open it manually and, then, scroll to the end to find the just-received images. Those are another taps.
Finally, as opposed to just NFC'ing the images to an Android device, sending a photo to an iDevice using AirBlue Sharing has another downside: the current (1.4.50) version of AirBlue Sharing doesn't transfer the EXIF data of the image when saving the received file to the Camera Roll. (No such problem on Android there, the full EXIF data remains accessible in the stock Gallery app after transfer.) (Incidentally, I'll talk to the dev of AirBlue Sharing on this matter. I've implemented both full EXIF metadata saving and also location + compass saving in my own camera-related AppStore apps. Saving this info is pretty easy in iOS when exporting images to the Camera Roll.)
See how much easier it is to transfer images if you can use NFC?
EDIT: with iOS and Wi-Fi enabled cameras, as I've also (quickly) mentioned, you can use third-party iOS apps released by the camera manufacturers to allow for file transfers involving much fewer taps. These apps, in most cases, maintain constant Wi-Fi connections between the iDevice and the camera. This, as you may have already guessed, result in a substandard battery life, particularly on the camera (most Wi-Fi cameras suffer from this problem). NFC is much better in this respect too as it doesn't need a constant Wi-Fi connection - it (re)creates the connection only when you bump the two devices together and immediately stops it after finishing the transfer to save battery life.
