5 ms·

Writing code is fun, but I can't find much of a downside with Bluetooth here. "You can accidentally turn it on" (fair, I guess?) "and it drains battery like cra

Writing code is fun, but I can't find much of a downside with Bluetooth here. "You can accidentally turn it on" (fair, I guess?) "and it drains battery like crazy" (it shouldn't unless you have a very buggy device) don't seem like that bad compared to Yet Another File Sharing App. I remember way back in the Android 4 era, my phone and my tablet both supported some "standard" form of WiFi Direct. It worked intuitively (just share a file), was blazingly fast (as fast as P2P WiFi can be), was low latency, and just worked. I used it to transfer media files and backups and it easily beat having to hook up a USB cable to two devices. I was sad to find out this was probably some kind of proprietary interface, because the feature seems to have vanished. It was the best local file sharing mechanism I'd ever used and it disappeared into thin air. Android Beam was nice, but computers and tablets don't have the required NFC hardware to make it work. I don't expect Apple to play nice with anyone else, but it's time Microsoft, Google, and the various Android manufacturers got their shit together and developed some kind of open sharing system. Google and Samsung already joined forces, but Microsoft seems to have gone off to do their own thing again. We have P2P WiFi for display sharing and the like, why can't we decide on some kind of file sharing protocol here? I don't care if it's SMB or FTP or HTTP, it's really not that difficult a problem to solve. The only issue is that there are hundreds of apps, each with their own protocols and implementations, none of which come packaged with the OS.

TheAceOfHearts 3y ago
I wrote a similar comment but so far have only received downvotes without any feedback as to why people seem to disagree with me. Admittedly, maybe my position is a bit more extreme, in that I think it would be pretty reasonable to consider applying political pressure or even legislating to improve file sharing and interoperabiliy between devices. I'd prefer it if big tech companies would just come together and implement support for full cross platform file transfers, but I don't see that happening. My biggest frustration is that there doesn't seem to be anyone with a large platform willing to ask people in leadership at the big tech companies about such features. In my ideal world: big tech would come together to write some spec, then devices and operating systems would slowly implement and roll it out. And on older devices you could just build a third-party app that implements the same functionality. The goal would be that ultimately you'd have seamless basic interoperability between devices without having to install third-party apps.
- shiroiushi 3y ago
  >I'd prefer it if big tech companies would just come together and implement support for full cross platform file transfers How would this help them coerce people to stay within one vendor's ecosystem? It wouldn't. >The goal would be that ultimately you'd have seamless basic interoperability between devices without having to install third-party apps. Interoperability is the last thing that some big tech companies want.
GoblinSlayer 3y ago
No no, file sharing is privacy! Not allowed. Also both SMB implementations are "let's implement a protocol and add security later" nightmare.
- lifestyleguru 3y ago
  > file sharing is privacy I think the worse blocker is _piracy_. The copyright predators are terrified about people sharing files locally.
  - syene 3y ago
    They probably meant piracy
DeathArrow 3y ago
> it's time Microsoft, Google, and the various Android manufacturers got their shit together and developed some kind of open sharing system There is one: Quick Share/Nearby Share. It's supported on both Windows and Android.
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  Microsoft's Nearby Share isn't the same as Android's Quick Share (formerly Nearby Share). You can download an app to get Google's share feature working, though, but that doesn't fix the problem.
Goto80 3y ago
> Writing code is fun, but I can't find much of a downside with Bluetooth here. Yesterday my son needed to transfer a video file from his Android phone to his school iPad. We tried Bluetooth, but it simply kept failing, no matter what we tried. The devices saw each other and could be paired, but file transfer didn't work at all. We tried sending the same video file to another Android phone, and it just worked on first try. So, even basic Bluetooth doesn't work in all cases, unfortunately. He ended up recording a video of his phone playing the video... :) > I don't expect Apple to play nice with anyone else... This seems to be the problem in our case. Tonight I'll setup a Nextcloud on our network, this should work properly.
- fransje26 3y ago
  Give those options a try: - https://www.sharedrop.io/ https://www.sharedrop.io/ - https://webwormhole.io/ https://webwormhole.io/ - https://snapdrop.net/ https://snapdrop.net/ - https://perguth.de/peertransfer/ https://perguth.de/peertransfer/ - https://pairdrop.net/ https://pairdrop.net/
  - antgiant 3y ago
    Adding my favorite - https://justbeamit.com https://justbeamit.com
- GeekyBear 3y ago
  > Yesterday my son needed to transfer a video file from his Android phone to his school iPad. The iOS version of VLC has a built in webserver you can remotely connect to for file transfers. You connect to the iPad's IP address with any web browser and then transfer files back and forth. https://allthings.how/vlc-player-share-files-wifi-iphone-pc/ https://allthings.how/vlc-player-share-files-wifi-iphone-pc/
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
phh 3y ago
Yes, this is killing me. I have a colleague that told me "on iPhones I can super easily share files to someone else", and I'm like "20 years ago sharing files across devices was a non-issue, because we had STANDARDS (ok maybe 17-18 years ago rather). Sharing files wasn't considered a feature worth mentioning because every phone supported this out of the box (well not exactly, so the feature was having Bluetooth). Tech monopolies prefer to ignore standards (looking at who implements which parts of Matter is pretty hilarious in that regard), and killed a whole range of obvious things in the process.
- stcg 3y ago
  Is bluetooth not usable anymore?
  - phh 3y ago
    The average file's size largely increased, bluetooth speed didn't (maybe *=2 with EDR)
  - calamari4065 3y ago
    Bluetooth caps out at a few tens of KByte/s. Not very nice when you're trying to transfer an image several MB in size.
- pnutjam 3y ago
  KDE connect is my goto for sharing between phone and computer.
  - rsa4046 3y ago
    > KDE connect is my goto for sharing between phone and computer. Ditto. KDE connect is flawless, one of the best features.
- ArnoVW 3y ago
  As much as I hate Apple for their repetitive NIH syndrome, Bluetooth has never worked flawlessly, and increasing filesizes made it increasingly maladapted.
NotPractical 3y ago
Bluetooth is really slow, that's the main drawback. WiFi Direct is a really great technology but unfortunately it is as simple as its name implies: it's a peer-to-peer version of WiFi. It establishes a connection between two devices, but you need to do everything else (like figuring out how to send files over the socket) yourself. There are plenty of cross-platform apps that implement WiFi Direct file sharing though.
- jmrm 3y ago
  What I find weird is how easy to use is (was?) Wi-Fi Direct between Android phones and how this isn't a common thing in Windows or other non-mobile OSs. I have just Discovered Windows 10 have Wi-Fi Direct if you have both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth adapters, and it's as easy as enabling it and right clicking a file to share it. It's a shame this isn't common knowledge nowadays
pnutjam 3y ago
KDE connect handles this pretty well.

TheAceOfHearts 3y ago

I wrote a similar comment but so far have only received downvotes without any feedback as to why people seem to disagree with me. Admittedly, maybe my position is a bit more extreme, in that I think it would be pretty reasonable to consider applying political pressure or even legislating to improve file sharing and interoperabiliy between devices. I'd prefer it if big tech companies would just come together and implement support for full cross platform file transfers, but I don't see that happening. My biggest frustration is that there doesn't seem to be anyone with a large platform willing to ask people in leadership at the big tech companies about such features. In my ideal world: big tech would come together to write some spec, then devices and operating systems would slowly implement and roll it out. And on older devices you could just build a third-party app that implements the same functionality. The goal would be that ultimately you'd have seamless basic interoperability between devices without having to install third-party apps.

shiroiushi 3y ago
>I'd prefer it if big tech companies would just come together and implement support for full cross platform file transfers How would this help them coerce people to stay within one vendor's ecosystem? It wouldn't. >The goal would be that ultimately you'd have seamless basic interoperability between devices without having to install third-party apps. Interoperability is the last thing that some big tech companies want.

GoblinSlayer 3y ago

No no, file sharing is privacy! Not allowed. Also both SMB implementations are "let's implement a protocol and add security later" nightmare.

lifestyleguru 3y ago
> file sharing is privacy I think the worse blocker is _piracy_. The copyright predators are terrified about people sharing files locally.
- syene 3y ago
  They probably meant piracy

DeathArrow 3y ago

> it's time Microsoft, Google, and the various Android manufacturers got their shit together and developed some kind of open sharing system There is one: Quick Share/Nearby Share. It's supported on both Windows and Android.

jeroenhd 3y ago
Microsoft's Nearby Share isn't the same as Android's Quick Share (formerly Nearby Share). You can download an app to get Google's share feature working, though, but that doesn't fix the problem.

Goto80 3y ago

> Writing code is fun, but I can't find much of a downside with Bluetooth here. Yesterday my son needed to transfer a video file from his Android phone to his school iPad. We tried Bluetooth, but it simply kept failing, no matter what we tried. The devices saw each other and could be paired, but file transfer didn't work at all. We tried sending the same video file to another Android phone, and it just worked on first try. So, even basic Bluetooth doesn't work in all cases, unfortunately. He ended up recording a video of his phone playing the video... :) > I don't expect Apple to play nice with anyone else... This seems to be the problem in our case. Tonight I'll setup a Nextcloud on our network, this should work properly.

fransje26 3y ago
Give those options a try: - https://www.sharedrop.io/ https://www.sharedrop.io/ - https://webwormhole.io/ https://webwormhole.io/ - https://snapdrop.net/ https://snapdrop.net/ - https://perguth.de/peertransfer/ https://perguth.de/peertransfer/ - https://pairdrop.net/ https://pairdrop.net/
- antgiant 3y ago
  Adding my favorite - https://justbeamit.com https://justbeamit.com
GeekyBear 3y ago
> Yesterday my son needed to transfer a video file from his Android phone to his school iPad. The iOS version of VLC has a built in webserver you can remotely connect to for file transfers. You connect to the iPad's IP address with any web browser and then transfer files back and forth. https://allthings.how/vlc-player-share-files-wifi-iphone-pc/ https://allthings.how/vlc-player-share-files-wifi-iphone-pc/
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

phh 3y ago

Yes, this is killing me. I have a colleague that told me "on iPhones I can super easily share files to someone else", and I'm like "20 years ago sharing files across devices was a non-issue, because we had STANDARDS (ok maybe 17-18 years ago rather). Sharing files wasn't considered a feature worth mentioning because every phone supported this out of the box (well not exactly, so the feature was having Bluetooth). Tech monopolies prefer to ignore standards (looking at who implements which parts of Matter is pretty hilarious in that regard), and killed a whole range of obvious things in the process.

stcg 3y ago
Is bluetooth not usable anymore?
- phh 3y ago
  The average file's size largely increased, bluetooth speed didn't (maybe *=2 with EDR)
- calamari4065 3y ago
  Bluetooth caps out at a few tens of KByte/s. Not very nice when you're trying to transfer an image several MB in size.
pnutjam 3y ago
KDE connect is my goto for sharing between phone and computer.
- rsa4046 3y ago
  > KDE connect is my goto for sharing between phone and computer. Ditto. KDE connect is flawless, one of the best features.
ArnoVW 3y ago
As much as I hate Apple for their repetitive NIH syndrome, Bluetooth has never worked flawlessly, and increasing filesizes made it increasingly maladapted.

NotPractical 3y ago

Bluetooth is really slow, that's the main drawback. WiFi Direct is a really great technology but unfortunately it is as simple as its name implies: it's a peer-to-peer version of WiFi. It establishes a connection between two devices, but you need to do everything else (like figuring out how to send files over the socket) yourself. There are plenty of cross-platform apps that implement WiFi Direct file sharing though.

jmrm 3y ago
What I find weird is how easy to use is (was?) Wi-Fi Direct between Android phones and how this isn't a common thing in Windows or other non-mobile OSs. I have just Discovered Windows 10 have Wi-Fi Direct if you have both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth adapters, and it's as easy as enabling it and right clicking a file to share it. It's a shame this isn't common knowledge nowadays

pnutjam 3y ago

KDE connect handles this pretty well.