Ah, makes me think of MacOS system 7 days. MacOS formatted the 3.5" disks with its own filesystem, so if you copied a file onto it, and put the disk in a Windows PC (or DOS?), the PC would go "Huh?".
3 decades later, hooray, now we can share files between Android and iPhone!
Until reading this thread, I had no idea that iPhones did not support Bluetooth for file transfer. I had expected comments like "we can do this with an entry-level phone via Bluetooth already".
On the other hand, with the ubiquity of always-on Internet access and cheap data plans, in most situations where Bluetooth would have been used, I now see WhatsApp being used instead.
At the same time as we have companies trying to push their humanoid robots with AI and all, we finally have devices able to communicate with each other again. Vendor locking is such a stupid thing.
One of those apps that "just works". Been using it recently to share files between an Android phone and my Mac. Turns out it works better than Airdrop itself when I couldn't send a file from my iPhone to my Mac. Great user experience as well.
Long overdue, there should really be an open standard for wireless sharing of files. Windows? macOS? Linux? Android? iOS? Switch2? PS5? Doesn't matter, just open the wireless file transfer window and it should just work. Having to install third-party apps for such basic functionality is ridiculous.
If we had a functional government every major tech CEO would get called by congress, grilled about this bullshit, and told to sort it out unless they want to get some bullshit legislation shoved down their throat.
Is the benefit transferring "local" via BT instead of across the internet as a text message attachment? Because I do the latter plenty, but pretty much never AirDrop anything to anybody, even if they're sitting next to me.
It seems that this is directional, flowing from Android to Apple but not necessarily back (e.g., me airdropping a photo to my parent who uses Android). I'd love for this to work in the other direction as well.
Around 2008 I saw two girls, not too versed in technology, share a mp3 song over bluetooth. At the time I thought that if technology finally arrived at the point where "normal people" could be able to do things that required lots of technical knowledge just a few years ago then we were very close to a future where technology could be a giant enabler of powers to everyone.
I am really ashamed by how wrong I was and how WE allowed things to became so artificially limited.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 50.2 ms ] thread3 decades later, hooray, now we can share files between Android and iPhone!
/s
We used to be able to send files over Bluetooth before the iPhone came out.
Here is a more hilarious attempt to break Vendor lock from the 90s!: https://youtu.be/TcJBXgmdX44?t=98
Things were more fun back then. Now Google vs Apple is so BORING! :D
On the other hand, with the ubiquity of always-on Internet access and cheap data plans, in most situations where Bluetooth would have been used, I now see WhatsApp being used instead.
kind of worked with flip-phone resolutions, but tiresome with multi-megabyte pictures of today
There is a different article with a comment by google here:
https://www.theverge.com/news/825228/iphone-airdrop-android-...
> Update, November 20th: Added a quote from a Google spokesperson confirming that Apple was not involved in the development of this feature.
Is the Android equivalent any better?
If we had a functional government every major tech CEO would get called by congress, grilled about this bullshit, and told to sort it out unless they want to get some bullshit legislation shoved down their throat.
I am really ashamed by how wrong I was and how WE allowed things to became so artificially limited.
I can also recommend LocalSend.
https://localsend.org/
If you're not close, telegram fork allow easy sharing of files too.