If you are choosing between an NFC business card and a QR code, carry the NFC card for the people standing in front of you and keep a QR code of the same profile address for screens, slides and print. Both open the same web page. They just get there in different ways, and each one fails in a place the other does not.
What each one actually does
A QR code is a picture of a web address. It was released in 1994 by DENSO WAVE, then a division of DENSO in Japan, and today every current iPhone reads one straight from the Camera app: point it at the code in Photo mode and tap the link that appears at the bottom of the screen. On a Pixel, the Camera app does the same when the Camera scan suggestions setting is on.
An NFC card holds a web address on a small chip with no battery. When it comes near the back of a phone, the phone powers the chip for a moment and reads the address. On iPhone XS and later this happens in the background, with no app open. The phone shows a notification, the person taps it, and the page opens in their browser.
So the payload is identical. What differs is the work the other person has to do to receive it.
Where the tap is faster
Scanning a code is a small sequence: unlock, open the camera, frame the square, hold still, wait for the link, tap it. In good light that takes a few seconds. In a dim bar, at an angle, or with a scuffed card, it takes longer, and Apple's own tip for a hard scan is to switch on the flashlight.
A tap skips all of it. Nobody aims, nothing needs to be in focus, and lighting does not matter, because the phone reads the chip by radio. For a one to one exchange, standing up, often with a drink or a bag in the other hand, that difference is the whole case for NFC.
The tap has its own catch: the antenna is near the top edge of an iPhone, not the middle, and a thick case or a metal plate can block it. We covered that in does a tap card work on every phone.
Where a QR code is the better tool
A tap is strictly one card to one phone, at a distance of a few centimeters. Anything else is QR territory:
- A slide at the end of a talk, where two hundred phones need the address at once.
- A booth sign, a poster, or a printed menu of your services.
- The back of a paper meishi, so a person who keeps paper can still reach the live profile later.
- A video call, where your card is on one side of a screen and their phone is on the other.
- A phone that has NFC switched off, or a budget handset that never had it.
None of these are edge cases. If you speak at events or work a booth, you will need both in the same week.
The camera blocks the tap
Apple's developer documentation lists the times when an iPhone has its screen on and still will not read an NFC tag in the background. One of them is when the camera is in use. Others are when Apple Pay Wallet is open, when airplane mode is on, and when the phone has not been unlocked since it was switched on.
Picture the usual exchange. You say "let me give you my card", the other person helpfully opens their camera expecting a QR code, and the tap does nothing. Ask them to close the camera and try again near the top of the phone. Or, if you sense the moment slipping, show the QR code instead and keep talking.
How to carry both without it looking like a backup plan
Put the card in the pocket where you would reach for a paper card. Keep a QR code of the same profile address somewhere you can show it in one move: the lock screen of your phone, the last slide of your deck, the back of your printed cards. Because every route leads to the same address, an update to your profile reaches all of them at once.
On AnimaNext the card itself carries no printed code, only the debossed mark, so the QR code is something you generate from your profile address. If you use an iPhone, the dashboard can also add a pass to Apple Wallet that shows a QR code for the same profile.
When the meeting is formal and paper is expected, none of this replaces the paper exchange. When not to tap covers which rooms those are, and the FAQ has the short answers on phones and compatibility.