A useful trick that I've been doing for a few years is having a folder with qr code images on my homescreen. Whenever somebody asks me for my linkedin, my phone number, or the wifi access to our office, I just pop out the QR code for that and show it to them on my phone. They scan it and job done.
I started doing this around the time IOS added QR code support to their camera app (six years ago or so). Very fun to watch iphone owners heads explode that were expecting to go through a tedious ritual of typing out a phone number or email address. Still happens occasionally. People are used to awkward and tedious rituals for exchanging contact details and this is the complete opposite.
Very simple to do and very practical. Most phones have QR code support built into their default camera apps now. You don't need any special apps for this. So, there's very little friction with this. Mostly it's just people being unaware that they can do this. There are gazillions of websites where you can create QR codes for web links, vcards, wifi credentials, etc. That part is easy. All you need to do is create a QR code and save it to some location where you can access it from your phone easily and show it to people.
I use Google drive for this but it's pretty easy to find alternatives to that.
Plasma lets you generate a QR Code by copying something to the clipboard and clicking on the QR Code button. It is able to display the QR Code, and the QR Code happens to be draggable.
It seems we are very close to add a Save button there, which would be incredibly convenient :-)
Popular apps already have this built in (WhatsApp / LinkedIn / other social media platforms).
My "killer" idea back then was simply putting a LinkedIn-qr-code on back of my business card. Whenever I handed it over to someone (at a conference, mostly), they found it brilliant, scanned it immediately and sent a request on LinkedIn. The good things about this procedure were that:
* I didn't need to keep random people's business card and forge who they were after a 3-5day busy conference, I just had to go to my LinkedIn, and could remember them by their face
* vice versa: they could associate my contact accept with a face. Not to mention that this opened a more direct communication channel with a lesser chance to "ghost" me.
I guess business cards are not really a thing anymore on the more popular conferences that target a younger (engineer) audience.
This helps with the initial exchange of contact information, but keeping it updated for the people that have it is a real challenge, especially if you want to avoid using social media.
I did this for some people in my wider team when they were going to events.
Most generated qrcodes (from a URL) will work fine, but LinkedIn is strange as their direct link will open a web browser and not always kick open their app on a persons phone.
(The issue mostly seemed to be older versions of iOS that created headaches).
If you’re doing this for LinkedIn, instead open the app on your phone, find your QR code for your profile, screenshot the QR code their app generates, then crop it and use it as you need.
IOS link handling might not be that great on older versions. Probably if you decode that QR code they might be using some custom link scheme that they register for their app. That's still a valid approach but should not be needed with modern phones as you can just register your website urls to be handled by the app.
Two iPhones now also can exchange contact information when you tap them together. Not sure whether this also works for wifi credentials. Sharing wifi credentials does work between contacts if you are on the same wifi as they are trying to join.
Closest thing is that you can view your current WiFi password from settings and copy it to your clipboard. You could probably airdrop that to another iPhone. The feature to share your WiFi may not be far away though.
I feel like in the time I take to open an app, find a QR code, and they open the camera and scan it, I'd have just told them the 10 digit phonr number and been done with it
I also have a QR code in a photo widget. It takes me < 2 seconds to unlock my phone and swipe once on the home screen, and there's usually a delay as people pull out their camera, but there are a couple advantages:
1. People spell my name right. Even when I tell people how to spell my name exactly, they still get it wrong. If they scan my QR code, they always get it right
2. I can put all my info in one place. My vCard has my phone number, several emails, links to my social media, Discord, and whatnot.
3. You can include a photo, if you don't mind making the QR code much larger. With a well optimized image, this can be a nice addition.
that's true, yet before I unlock my phone, Google shows me what song is playing... its almost as if it should not be called a phone because they don't prioritize that functionality.
wondering how the https://indieweb.org movement and their microformat approach to profiles and the use of RSS feeds isn't already an expression of this idea, only missing bit is the ability to quickly pull a blog contact into one's phone?
I started doing this around the time IOS added QR code support to their camera app (six years ago or so). Very fun to watch iphone owners heads explode that were expecting to go through a tedious ritual of typing out a phone number or email address. Still happens occasionally. People are used to awkward and tedious rituals for exchanging contact details and this is the complete opposite.
Very simple to do and very practical. Most phones have QR code support built into their default camera apps now. You don't need any special apps for this. So, there's very little friction with this. Mostly it's just people being unaware that they can do this. There are gazillions of websites where you can create QR codes for web links, vcards, wifi credentials, etc. That part is easy. All you need to do is create a QR code and save it to some location where you can access it from your phone easily and show it to people.
I use Google drive for this but it's pretty easy to find alternatives to that.