NameDrop vs a digital business card NameDrop is great, between two iPhones.

NameDrop is part of AirDrop. According to Apple’s iPhone User Guide (read 23 September 2026), you hold the top of your iPhone a few centimetres from the other person’s iPhone or Apple Watch, keep them together until NameDrop appears on both screens, then choose to share your card and receive theirs, or only receive theirs. It is on by default, and it works with Apple Watch Series 7 and later, Apple Watch SE (2nd generation) and later, and the Ultra models.

It is a genuinely good exchange. Nothing to install, no account, nothing to print, and it is two-way: you can leave with their details as well as giving yours, which a paper card never managed.

What goes across is narrower than people assume. Apple’s Personal Safety guide says: “NameDrop shares only your name, the phone number or email address you choose, and Contact Poster information associated with your Contact Card. It doesn’t share other information in your Contact Card, like your home address or birthday.” Your company, job title and website are not on that list. It also requires iOS 17.1 or watchOS 10.1 or later on both devices.

• They have an Android phone. Apple describes NameDrop as sharing with “a nearby iPhone or Apple Watch”, and nothing else. Some Android phones can now exchange files with AirDrop: Google’s Pixel help describes Quick Share sending to iPhones set to “Everyone for 10 minutes”. That is file sharing. Neither Apple nor Google describes NameDrop working across the two. Our Android guide covers what does work.
• You are across a table. A few centimetres means one of you leans over, or you pass phones. An NFC business card has the same problem, for the same reason. At a dinner, in a meeting room or on a panel, that is the moment people fall back to “I’ll find you on LinkedIn”.
• You are at a lanyard event or on a stand. Each NameDrop is one pair of phones held together. When five people are waiting to talk to you, a code on your screen or your badge can be scanned by one after another, without anybody touching your phone.

There is a fourth, quieter one. Apple’s guide notes that NameDrop only sends new contact information, and does not update an existing contact. If they already have an old number for you, NameDrop will not fix it.

The QR column is a web page, which is its strength and its cost. Any phone with a camera can open it, including from across the room, and it can show everything a paper card could and more. But the other person needs signal once to load it, and a web page is not a two-way exchange unless it asks for their details. That is what our QR code business card page is about.

A Cardr is a signed Apple Wallet pass that lives in your Wallet. The other person scans its QR code with their camera, on an iPhone or an Android, and lands on your page at cardr.co/yourname. From there one tap on Save saves you to their contacts and one more sends their details back, which puts them in your contact list. Nobody installs anything, and they never get the pass: it is yours.

Two things to be straight about. The pass lives in your own phone’s wallet: Apple Wallet on an iPhone, or Google Wallet on Android, where it takes your design’s colours, and its artwork on designs that have one. And the person scanning needs signal once, to load the page. NameDrop needs neither a website nor anyone else’s service.

So the practical answer is both. NameDrop with the iPhone people standing next to you, and the code in your Wallet for everyone else: the Android users, the far side of the table and the queue at the stand. The card, the pass and the exchange are free on Cardr.