Data transfer between devices with a Google account should be much easier in the future.
Perhaps one of the best, because most convenient, features of Apple or iOS, iPadOS and macOS is AirDrop
. In case you don’t know this: This allows you to easily transfer pictures, videos and the like from an iPhone to a MacBook, for example. Easy
This is because no confirmation is required on the respective devices that approves the data transfer, provided the function is generally activated.
Anyone who is not part of the Apple cosmos can only squint wistfully in the direction of the iPhone and Co. Because Android doesn’t really offer anything comparable. Ok, that’s not entirely true: Android has been offering for a while Android Beam
that meanwhile Nearby Share
called. But just activating the function is so cumbersome, not to mention the no less complicated use, that the technologies cannot actually be compared.
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Google apparently wants to change that now and upgrade Nearby Share to eye level with AirDrop. At least that’s what Mishaal Rahman, senior technical editor at Esper and former editor-in-chief at XDA-Developers, tweets (via Digitaltrends).
link to Twitter content
Nearby Share will no longer issue confirmations
Specifically, Rahman claims to have discovered a special function in the latest version of Google Play Services, with which devices with a corresponding Google account can be made permanently visible to other devices in the area that are registered using the same Google account. The aim is therefore to simplify the cumbersome confirmation process – just like AirDrop has been doing for a long time. In other words: an OK is no longer required for every data transfer on all devices.
How exactly does this work? Like AirDrop, Nearby Share is integrated into a so-called mesh, i.e. a network of different transmission standards. First, Nearby Share detects other devices via Bluetooth and connects to them. The best transfer protocol is then selected, such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or WebRTC, to ensure the highest possible transfer speed.
However, Google is apparently even adding a function to Nearby Share that AirDrop is not (yet) available to: If two Android smartphones have NFC activated, it is enough to touch the back of the other and they will connect.
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When is the Nearby Share upgrade coming? There is no information about this yet, as Google has so far remained silent on the subject. However, Digitaltrends considers it conceivable that we at the in-house developer conference Google I / O
learn more about the improved Nearby Share.
