The interesting question is authentication/authorization - at the moment, macOS greatly simplifies this as long as both devices belong to the same Apple ID. On the opposite side, Samsung does the same.
How will that work out?
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How will that work out?
Would be cool if an open standard on auth forms on top of this.
Note that this is only a conversation about sender identification, which allows sending to a "non-world-visible" receiving device and confirmation-less sending to devices with the same iCloud account on them. Anonymous sending isn't cryptographically gated by Apple, to my knowledge.
P2P proximal wireless transfer, sure, but there's half a dozen apps on your phone that'll let you punt a document, a photo, an invite to someone on the other phone OS platform.
Maybe I'm an edge case, but probably 90% of my Airdrop usage is between my own devices, so the platform taking care of the authentication story is of more utility than cross-platform transfers. If someone isn't on iOS I'll just send them the file on Signal since, if the source is my phone in the first place, it's probably not a huge transfer anyway.
Yeah, via their server, which means it's slow even if you have wifi, requires valuable data credit if not, or it requires the installation of a companion app on the other device and putting the other device in the same network.
That's exactly my point: Apps – which users have to install, which requires an Internet connection.
Also all of them routing data through some centralized server, often not end-to-end encrypted.
> If someone isn't on iOS I'll just send them the file on Signal
Approximately none of the people that I've Airdropped photos to in the past have Signal installed, and even if they do, there isn't always an Internet connection available. Airdrop also sends the original photo including all metadata and resolution, which is another big reason I like it.
On top of that, I've Airdropped photos to complete strangers (e.g. if I managed to get a nice shot of something on a tour) with which I didn't have any desire to exchange numbers, and I just would not have been able to send the photo to Android.
This also roundtrips to the internet, which is slow and expensive compared to a LAN transfer.
You also can't attach files >100MB in Signal. No transferring an installer .iso.
Comments like this are one of the few things that can make me jealous of Apple users. I just can't stomach how locked down the platform is as a developer. Android is also getting worse though.
Compared to a decade ago or two, there are too many silos in communication these days as it is.