Is there any way to open an iOS application from an NFC tag or tag emulator in the same fashion as the NDEF Android Application Record?
In my limited research, it seems as though the iOS NFC reader may not support most tags. Does anyone have experience with this topic?
On
Developers can't access the NFC-Chip. To provide similar functionality, you could use iBeacons, but this much more expensive.
QR-Codes would work to, but this is not as comfortable as Bluetooth or NFC.
On
On newer iPhone you can use NFC background scanning. On supported iPhones it looks for URI records in the NDEF message, which your app can subscribe to. In contrast to AARs on Android, it will always show a dialog before starting your app.
See https://developer.apple.com/documentation/corenfc/adding_support_for_background_tag_reading
iOS does not use the NFC reader capabilities of the NFC chip embedded in the iPhone. Thus you cannot read any tags with iOS. As a consequence, reading NDEF messages from tags or even launching apps through NFC tags is not possible on iOS.