/s
https://security.googleblog.com/2025/11/android-quick-share-...
To ensure a seamless experience for both Android and iOS users, Quick Share currently works with AirDrop's "Everyone for 10 minutes" mode. This feature does not use a workaround; the connection is direct and peer-to-peer, meaning your data is never routed through a server, shared content is never logged, and no extra data is shared. As with "Everyone for 10 minutes" mode on any device when you’re sharing between non-contacts, you can ensure you're sharing with the right person by confirming their device name on your screen with them in person.
This implementation using "Everyone for 10 minutes” mode is just the first step in seamless cross-platform sharing, and we welcome the opportunity to work with Apple to enable “Contacts Only” mode in the future.
The contact-only mode is authenticated using an Apple-signed device certificate and a signed record of those contact identifiers (as hashed UUIDs) that have been registered for a particular Apple ID associated with the device.
Someone with a Mac can extract those from the keychain (the people behind OpenDrop have a tool to do this), but otherwise you'd need to register a new apple ID, get Apple to register the contact information, register a device of some sort and then do all the key exchanges.
We used to be able to send files over Bluetooth before the iPhone came out.
I understand that some people get confused and overwhelmed by a directory structure, but I see that as an education problem, not a UX problem. I was taught all of this in elementary and middle school computer classes in the '90s and early '00s. Having this knowledge early on made me less afraid of my computer, made it feel less like a magical black box, and gave me the confidence to learn more complex topics on my own.
Computers become way more capable when the people using them understand fundamentals like directory structures and command line usage. I don't think either of these things are as difficult to learn as reading, writing, and arithmetic (especially if you already have a base level education in those three things).
If more "everyday people" just had a little bit more knowledge about these things, they would be able to do way more with their computers with less of a reliance on proprietary solutions that funnel them down whatever path makes someone else the most money.
Apple likes to have far more control than that.
There was almost a whole decade there where Apple pretended that the feature just didn't need to exist.
Apple added copy/paste in iOS 3.0 in 2009
Also, on Android, you can choose any file explorer. You're stuck with Files and it sucks (but it looks nice).
Now "bluetooth" I could buy (and I do not miss at all).
Android misses the mark so much with MTP and iPhone… waves frantically at iTunes.
(At least, in a weird bizarre twist, the iPhone’s Files app is actually really useful for me. I find myself formatting flash drives, copying stuff from network shares, etc, all from my phone and it’s so nifty to have nearly-first-class features there.)
I know that read/write conflict concerns are what got USB Mass Storage mode removed from Android, but surely there's some way to resolve that. Like it wouldn't bother me a bit if Android just locked the device and put it in "file transfer mode" when it's mounted on a computer, similar to how iPods used to and how Kobo e-readers do now. It'd be worth the universal robust multi-platform support.
Cross platforms, really? So for example between a Blackberry and a Windows CE phone?
Yes, it was part of the Bluetooth file transfer spec[0] and possible between any two devices that implemented it correctly.
0: https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/specs/file-transfer...
Bluetooth was a huge upgrade because you no longer needed to do that.
My mom was upset that she would lose her photos, so I puzzled over it for a long time trying to figure out a way. Finally, I realized I was being stupid and missing the obvious: both phones had Bluetooth! I paired them with each other, dug through Razr menus, selected the photos, and did a Bluetooth file send. As expected, the photos went right over. Well, I shouldn't say right over because it was very slow, but it worked just as it should.
This was just as broadband was getting popular, so those who had it usually downloaded MP3s and then distributed them at school through Bluetooth. I remember one friend using her phone as a bridge to copy files from me using Bluetooth and sending to another friend's phone using IR.
This was across all the classroom, this definitely wasn't restricted to the nerdy clique. We found out that chatting through notes exchange worked pretty well and then it spread like wildfire.
The answer to your first question may simply be they want to sell more Pixel 10 phones.
The investment into custom silicon is more likely to pay off when new and exiting features are exclusive to the newer platform.
Neither Apple nor Google is doing anything revolutionary with their silicon for such a standard compute task. It's really mostly minor tuning to get a more optimal part instead of an off-the-shelf chip catering to other uses too, with die area and power consumption "wasted" in your setup.
https://security.googleblog.com/2025/11/android-quick-share-...
Also `we welcome the opportunity to work with Apple to enable “Contacts Only” mode in the future` doesn't make it sound like Apple actually helped implement this
Then I assume they'll roll it out further
For better or worse, I do own Pixel 10
Short story: I did a long trip across two continent with my wife. Me with an Android devices, her on iOS. We did backup our photos in our own private cloud but guess how we had to quick exchange photos while in the wild (no wifi and sometimes no network)? We couldn't. Because Google and Apple did everything so we couldn't.
Google wants to your data and fought for the cloud. Apple don't want Android users to easily partake in some data exchange with iOS users (you gotta buy your ticket to their jail). So sad you don't realize how backward that is.
Just needs a WebRTC capable browser.
> we welcome the opportunity to work with Apple to enable “Contacts Only” mode in the future.
> I applaud the effort to open more secure information sharing between platforms and encourage Google and Apple to work together more on this.
Your move, Apple.
I doubt this was done for the DMA.
Nor send text message with images.
Is the Android equivalent any better?
As for Android, it works fine, but I’ve probably used that feature only once in the past ten years. I haven't seen others use it either.
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.
This is intentional.
I can also recommend LocalSend.
If you're not close, telegram fork allow easy sharing of files too.
Also, for all intents and purposes, GMS is part of the Android OS, but Google had to branch it off, to keep it closed source.
...still relevant
Some background: https://www.ditto.com/blog/cross-platform-p2p-wi-fi-how-the-...
netsharc•1h ago
3 decades later, hooray, now we can share files between Android and iPhone!
fmbb•1h ago
coupdejarnac•1h ago
swiftcoder•1h ago
rconti•59m ago
Operating systems have always used their own filesystems, and it persists to this day.
The only obvious exceptions that come to mind are iso9660 as a standard for CDs, and people generally go out of their way to use FAT/FAT32/whatever on USB keys and SD cards for compatibility with cameras or whatever device they're plugging the card into. But the latter is a choice users actively make to ensure the FS is compatible with the device, rather than a default.