Hex NFC Version 1.0.2 Released: Passport & DESFire Upgrades
An update on Hex NFC's progress and future plans, including the announcement of an upcoming Android version of the app.
Download Hex NFC for free from the App Store! Free forever, transparency, and no third-party advertising.
About three weeks since the launch of Hex NFC and it's been a heartening success. People have really been enjoying it and we've been getting a decent number of daily downloads for an NFC app in such a crowded marketplace.
A few enthusiastic users gave some very helpful feedback, and tested a lot of unusual NFC chips with the app, revealing some flaws in a few areas.
Before continuing with that, I want to acknowledge the user that donated $5 towards the development costs. When I was developing the app, I included the development costs more to show that real effort was put into building it, and that it wasn't just a quick and easy vibe code job. My fiancé was quite dubious at the time, the vibe was, 'why would anyone pay money for a free app?' I admit that I had my doubts as well. That's why it's such a massive compliment that somebody halfway across the world appreciated our work so much that they'd contribute any amount of money. We were dancing around the house with excitement. So it's a big "thank you" from me and Hex Pro.
A few users were eager to explore what would come up if they scanned some particularly unusual travel documents. I was lucky enough to be informed of the results, and was able to identify a number of improvements that could be added to the app.
For the uninitiated, ePassports (ISO/IEC 14443) utilise an encryption system that requires the passport number, birth date and document expiry date. This is an obvious solution to the problem of random scammers skimming your passport identity when travelling in a foreign country.
Hex NFC was developed with simple text and date input fields. One of Hex Pro's core tenets is user privacy and consumer rights. I make an effort to ensure that we only ever request permissions we absolutely need, and exercise restraint with analytics and tracking (for example, choosing self-hosted Umami over Google Analytics). So I originally kept camera permissions out of the app for that reason. Users strongly requested camera scanning to pick up their passport info and make the decryption process easier. So I set to work implementing it as quickly as possible and I'm so glad I did. It's fast and ultra-reliable, so give your passport a scan and try it out!
The users I communicated with brought some particularly interesting documents to the table. The first was a Chinese passport and the second was a Taiwanese 'travel document' which apparently has exactly the same technology and setup as a normal passport (go figure). And the next few were travel permits used for moving between Macau and Hong Kong.
The Chinese passport scanned just fine, no problem. The Taiwanese travel document had some minor data offset problems causing data from wrong fields to spill over into others, which were easily fixed.
It was that third group that brought some very interesting results. To tell you the truth, the travel permits scanned as if they were passports, but spat out a bunch of gobbledygook. But it provided excellent data for me and my trusty coding agent to figure out how to parse them.
That led me down a rabbit hole of countries that had non-standard travel documents. Turns out the European Union is where most of the strange aberrations show up, those being Belgium, Portugal, and possibly Spain, where some numbers are up to 12 characters long rather than the standard 9.
A feature that 1.0.0 missed out on was NDEF Application Setup and NDEF Application Removal. Without this feature, DESFire chips coming directly from the manufacturer don't have an application capability container installed. Essentially, they're not formatted for use as more common NFC chips like NTAG213 are.
Hex NFC now allows for NDEF Application Setup, and Removal. It's that latter feature that's particularly useful and unusual. You can set your DESFire back to factory default using the feature, leaving you free to repurpose it however you need later on. Just tap your DESFire, go to Operations and scroll down to Dangerous Actions, then Format. Learn more in the docs here..
Localisations have been improved across the board, with better word selection and a few areas that were still English only. The app is currently localised in Hex Pro's supported languages:
All of the documentation is fully translated and available through the website in all of those languages. Including all of the images and screenshots (a truly time-consuming endeavour).
Drum roll please! Yes, Hex NFC is coming to Android. When? Coming Soon™. I've purchased three Android devices of differing capabilities and brands, which should give us significant device coverage. Development is already in full swing, with some really major changes that will affect version 1.0.3 of the iOS version as well.
The big news is that the simulators are getting converted to Rust to better support cross platform development. The NFC simulators are designed to mimic real NFC silicon device behaviour. It allows Hex NFC's app code to be quickly tested against the logic of every supported chip. These are developed first from the data sheets available online, and then through rigorous real-world bench testing. The latter refines the actual behaviour of the silicon and ensures that Hex NFC accurately handles all possible scenarios.
The full conversion of the simulators to Rust means that the simulators can be used against both the iOS and Android app code, which will differ significantly on the backend. It ensures consistency in behaviour across platforms and makes regressions from future modifications less likely.
Along with the move to Rust, I've also sought to expand the simulator range with chips that iOS does not support but Android does, as well as push further on fleshing out and improving the existing simulators. To that end, I've purchased an array of new tags for testing purposes, totalling around $160. I've updated the development costs page on the apps website. I implore anyone who appreciates the work to make a contribution and help support development, as well as give a 5-star rating and review on the App Store.
We're working so hard to bring you the best quality software we can make. Looking forward to the future and I hope you'll give us consideration for future apps, including the upcoming Sol and Nepali Companion apps, slated for release within the month.
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