6 ms·
One Billion Apples’ Secret Sauce: Recipe for Apple Wireless Direct Link Protocol
- dang 8y agoUrl changed from https://owlink.org https://owlink.org, which points to this.
- ReverseCold 8y agoStill waiting on an AirDrop client for non-Apple products. It works really well and is pretty convenient. Maybe this paper will help.
- ryanmarsh 8y agoLittle things like this add up to the whole customer experience which is, I believe, what they see as their competitive advantage. I don’t see a supported client coming any time soon.
- rashkov 8y agoIt really is just one of those things that works so well. I was traveling recently and met some folks at a hostel. At the end of the trip we wanted to share our photos and videos with each other. Our hostel's internet connection consisted of a weak wifi access point, connected to weak satellite internet, with dozens of people vying with each other for the available bandwidth. One of us suggested AirDrop and we sent dozens of photos and videos between us within a few minutes time. Maybe this seemed more impressive to me, after several days of suffering a terrible internet connection. It definitely stood out for me as being one of those moments where technology can make things easier and magical. I do wonder if there are patents on this, and if that has prevented other devices from adopting this kind of protocol?
- userbinator 8y agoI do wonder if there are patents on this, and if that has prevented other devices from adopting this kind of protocol? WiFi has always had AdHoc mode which enables two devices to directly communicate like they were on the same Ethernet link, and I've used it a few times for a similar use-case to yours. It seems AirDrop is just a layer on top of that which facilitates the configuration required, but otherwise it would probably not be too difficult to "roll your own" similar app.
- solarkraft 8y agoDoesn't Ad hoc force you to disconnect from your current Access Point? I'm under the impression that this is not the case with Air Drop.
- FooHentai 8y agoNot in most cases, but it is somewhat chip (and driver) dependent). Miracast is another example of this - In most cases you can remain connected to your main network connection via Wi-Fi but also use Wi-Fi direct to run a casting session.
- Hello71 8y agoMost cards nowadays support at least one ad-hoc and one infrastructure connection. Sometimes they have to be on the same frequency though, but it certainly wouldn't be hard for Apple to just buy one that supports multiple frequencies.
- mcculley 8y agoThis is why AirDrop only works on some newer hardware: It requires Wi-Fi interfaces which can do Ad-Hoc and Infrastructure mode simultaneously.
- mstute 8y agoYes, unless your AP and ad hoc networks are on the same channel, you need two Wi-Fi radios to support this. AWDL "solves" this problem by quickly switching between these channels and schedules frame transmissions when the radio is tuned to the correct channel so the operation is (almost) transparent for the user (obviously, you loose some airtime for channel switching and your average latency increases).
- MBCook 8y agoAirDrop can also use BT. I think it decides based on file size? Either way I imagine BT is used to help negotiate everything instead of just connecting to dozens of random ad-hoc networks. Aren’t many devices limited to one WiFi network (whether ad-hoc or infrastructure) at once? That would mean many devices couldn’t do this without breaking normal WiFi.
- anonu 8y agoI've had the opposite experience with air drop... It's never worked for me even with a fair amount of tinkering. I end up just running an ssh server and scping stuff around...
- mitchty 8y agoNever really had an issue with it, even use it to send my details to others for contacts. Faster than handing phones around, and people then start sending me "happy birthday" texts as my contact info has that junk in it.
- Spooky23 8y agoIt depends on the user community and when. Some of the older devices don’t support it, or people aren’t signed into iCloud or have a problem with their sign-in.
- krrrh 8y agoZapya is one of the apps that almost everyone in SE Asia seems to have on their phones for transferring files back and forth in the absence of wifi networks. From what I could tell it is the primary way that music and photos are shared in Myanmar. It’s clunkier than airdrop, but x-platform.
- balladeer 8y agoAnd I am waiting for iMessage to come to other platforms just like Apple Music on Android [1]. Even a basic Android app would do and I think it's perfectly fine if one can have an iMessage account on other platforms iff they have at least one Apple product with "Messages" app on it - an iPad, a Mac, or an iPhone etc. It's a pretty good messaging service but almost useless to me (and I am sure to a lot of people) because very few among my friends have iPhones but a hell lot of them have Macs - like really a lot! [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.android.music https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.andr...
- bunnycorn 8y agoNice, I really wish this protocol would be available for Android as the number of applications would be immense (Apple's Multipeer Connectivity Framework). But it looks like Apple will deprecate this sooner or later, since they have joined The Thread Group [1] [1] https://www.macrumors.com/2018/08/07/apple-thread-group-smart-home-mesh-networking/ https://www.macrumors.com/2018/08/07/apple-thread-group-smar...
- djrogers 8y agoI really don’t see Thread as being in the same ballpark as AWDL - they have very different goals and use cases.
- innagadadavida 8y agoAir drop is fast for sure. Feature request: make it work the same when you share videos and photos via messages or photos app.
- briandear 8y agoCould you describe your feature in more detail? I am interested in what you are asking, but I don’t think I understand clearly.
- travbrack 8y agoSecret apple sauce?
- exabrial 8y agoMan it would be great to have an Android implementation. I like my MacBook running osx but I don't like iPhone hardware
- natvert 8y agoOr lack of real software ownership e.g. no root allowed!)
- briandear 8y agoThere is not a lot of software on my phone I would care about “owning.” I am not writing code on my phone; I am using it for routine tasks. I don’t have a need to dig into the internals and the “benefits” of doing that are overshadowed by the security risks.
- on_and_off 8y agoI am not sure that's the best example .. Not being able to install any software without Apple acting as the middleman is very concerning for both 3rd party devs and consumers. But that should not be something that has anything to do with root. FWIW, Android does this better : you do have a play store but you can also sideload any app. You just need to confirm that you know what you are doing and the play store can still scan these apps against known malware signatures.
- hyperbovine 8y ago99% of Apple consumers think root is something that grows out of the bottom of a tree.
- matwood 8y agoAre you sure you don’t mean 99% of all phone or computer users do not know what root means?
- natvert 8y agoWow. No love. Isn't lack of root like buying a house but the builder refusing to give you a master key or permission to change the locks?
- spunker540 8y agoOne neat application is sharing WiFi passwords— I was recently at a friends place and when I went to sign in to their home WiFi on my iPhone I believe they got a pop up on their phone saying “share password with xyz’s iPhone?” And the whole thing was super seamless, with no need for them to look it up and no need for me to type it in.
- samstave 8y agoso in the future - you can "war pop-up" random wifi's owners - by simply attempting to connect to the wifi and forcing a pop-up that says "Share wifi password with 'Save 15% of Geico's iPhone?"
- jeromegv 8y agoNo. It only works when you have each other within your Contacts list. https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/share-your-wifi-password-with-a-friend/ https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/share-your-wifi-password-wi...
- justtopost 8y agoSo are they tracking your contacts or can you spoof it from your phone? If one is not possible the other should be.
- tinus_hn 8y agoOn iPhone you have an iMessage acccount which is tied to the phone number. It can be done on the device, so it probably is.
- djoldman 8y ago"We have found that AWDL connections do not feature any security mechanism. All action and data frames are sent in plain and without authentication. AWDL delegates security functions to the transport and application layer, e. g., AirDrop uses TLS 1.2. The approach appears to be an informed decision to implement application dependant[sic] policies: a device might be trusted for sending an image file via AirDrop, but not for remote-controlling a Keynote presentation."
- PaulHoule 8y agoFor that matter I don't like interference on the crowded WiFi bands. It seems some creep uses AirDrop to send some lewds to somebody else on a plane every other week. I want to know my mac is using my wired and wireless network the way I intend rather than degrading the performance of WiFi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, Z-Wave, and other protocols that keep piling into unlicensed airspace.
- MBCook 8y agoWhat interference? It sounds like this is using vendor extensions to the 802.11 Wi-Fi standard. I have no idea what the default for AirDrop is, I keep it open only for contacts. If it’s open by default everyone that’s crazy. Doesn’t sound like the kind of thing Apple would do today, although it wouldn’t surprise me if it was like that in the past.
- kccqzy 8y agoSounds like you should just turn off AirDrop.
- jonknee 8y ago> I want to know my mac is using my wired and wireless network the way I intend Which it is, you can have AirDrop on or off and to accept connections from everyone or just your contacts. All modes have their uses.
- matthewmacleod 8y agoTo be clear, this feature is standards-compliant WiFi. It uses standard 802.11 frames and leverages the vendor-specific features to allow custom payloads. It’s not “degrading the performance” of WiFi - it is WiFi.
- saagarjha 8y agoInterestingly, they seem to based some of their research on the leaked source code for a Broadcom driver, which has now been taken down. So much for reproducible research, I guess?
- st3fan 8y agoI still have openairdrop.org available to link to the first open source project to implement this protocol.