by As expected, Google announced the launch of a new feature on Android called Nearby Share – the same counterpart to Apple’s AirDrop feature, launched nine years ago, for easy and secure sharing.
As we said earlier, Nearby Share is actually an evolutionary development of the obsolete Android Beam technology, which was no longer supported with the release of Android 10. Nearby Share technology works exactly like Apple AirDrop, providing an easy and convenient way to share files between two smartphones located nearby. Android. The initial connection of devices is via NFC or Bluetooth, and the direct transfer is already carried out using a faster and more stable Wi-Fi connection. However, if a Wi-Fi connection is not available, then a different type of connection is used (Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy, and WebRTC).
The functionality can be used not only for sharing images and videos, but also links and tweets. It is enabled in the Android quick settings menu. At the same time, unauthorized accidental sending of a potentially dangerous file is excluded, since you must first manually confirm the receipt of the file.
Nearby Share is already available on Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy smartphones. Google did not specify which models were the first to receive support for the new functionality, but promised a wide launch on more Android smartphones “in the coming weeks.” In the future (“in the coming months”) Nearby Share will work on laptops running Chrome OS.
Nearby Share requires Android 6.0 or newer to work, and Google says that functionality is added with a small update via Google Play Services – you don’t need to release an entire firmware update to enable Nearby Share. That is, as a result, the function will become available for all current Android devices.
Alas, Nearby Share is not supported on iOS, Mac or Windows, although a Google spokesman said the team plans to try to extend it to other modern platforms in the future.
Source: Google and The Verge
