Hey,
It would be really useful if you guys could come up with a easy way of sending contact and calendar data to people (both iPhone's and other handsets).
Every now and again I meet someone and need to give them my contact information, or details of a event I'm informing/inviting them to, but even though I already have that information on my iPhone, i usually end up writing it down for them, which is a bit of hassle.
It would be great if I could say 'Hey, let me give you my details...'. I get my iPhone out, the other person gets their phone out, a connection if made between the two devices (Bluetooth, NFC) and the data is sent from my phone to the other phone in a format that can be read by understood by any phone (vCard, iCalendar). It needs to be done in an easy 'Apple-esque' way (no complicated Bluetooth pairing, which is why NFC would be a good way to go) as that would be the main barrier to it's widespread use. It should be just as easy as giving someone a business card.
On the senders side of things, you should be able to go to the 'Info' page of a contact (so you can send not just your own data, but the details of other contacts you have) and a button at the bottom of the page labelled 'Send Contact' produces a pop-up (or slide up) with the options 'Send by Email' and 'Send by Bluetooth' or 'Send by NFC'.
With selecting email, you just enter a email address or select one from your contacts and hit send (sends a email with vCard/iCalendar attached).
Send by Bluetooth turns on Bluetooth automatically, starts searching for devices, then you just click on the name of the other persons phone.
Send by NFC switches on the NFC chip/antenna and you simply put your phone close to the other persons phone if they also have a NFC enabled handset.
Bluetooth would probably be the most used as most phones have bluetooth. With bluetooth, on the receivers side they should simply get a message saying 'Do you want to accept contact/calendar data from 'iPhone name'?' The phone then deals with the data in whatever way it does (e.g add to contacts / calendar).
It would be the same system for Calendars, by viewing the info page for a event, then using the 'Send Event' button.
You could also use the same kind of system to send a bookmark to someone.
The easiest data format to use would be vCard and iCalendar as they are already well implemented standards.
Talking about NFC, this would be a awesome feature that I feel would form the main basis for the next iPhone as the 'iPhone NFC' (or some other iteration). Not only would it enable the easy transfer of contact/calendar data, but also the holy grail of mobile phone features, using you handset as a payment method.
Things like VISA PayWave(
http://www.visapaywave.co.uk/) and MasterCard PayPass
http://www.mastercard.com/us/personal/en/aboutourcards/paypass/) are in trials around the UK and London Undergrounds 'Oyster Card' system prove the convenience of NFC based payments, which are ubiquitous in Japan and some parts of the US.
The iPhone has already negated the need for me to carry around a iPod, in addition to a phone. Why not let me throw my wallet in the trash as-well?
So to sum my 'Enhancement Request' up, I'm after a couple of things.
1. Ability to send contacts to other phones easily.
2. Ability to send calendar events to other phones easily.
3. Add a NFC chip to the next iPhone to enable the easy transfer of contact/calendar events, and also contact-less mobile payments.
Cheers, Nathan.
P.S. - On a similar note, could you please add the 'Send Contact' functionality to Address Book in OSX? We already have the 'Send Event' functionality in iCal, which works really well, but it's missing from Address Book for some reason.
