4 ms·

> which makes the value proposition a lot less clear. Wirelessly transferring files between a phone and a computer seems like a big use case. Still no easy sta

> which makes the value proposition a lot less clear. Wirelessly transferring files between a phone and a computer seems like a big use case. Still no easy standard way of doing it.

dtech 2y ago
Imo cloud storage like Dropbox has 95% solved this use case for years, which is why alternative solutions haven't popped up.
- beezlewax 2y ago
  Needing to upload files to third party servers just to get them onto your personal computer doesn't solve the case. It just injects a middleman.
  - mycatisblack 2y ago
    And only works when you’re connected to the internet.
  - ahoef 2y ago
    How does it not solve the problem? The data shows up on the other end. The fact that you don't agree with the implementation is a different thing, but it does solve the case.
    - otabdeveloper4 2y ago
      > How does it not solve the problem? It "solves" it but in a way that's ten times slower and fundamentally unreliable.
    - dist-epoch 2y ago
      For small files maybe. As shocking as it may seem, most Dropbox users just have the free version, with very limited space. Same for Google Drive or One Drive.
- coderatlarge 2y ago
  Dropbox is unavailable to huge populations. also sharing private bits with a cloud service should not be necessary to transfer files locally between devices. at least user level file encryption should become straightforward on a mobile device which it is not today.
dirkt 2y ago
But that doesn't need new peripherals, I could do that in my home WLAN network if they'd just install standard software for it on the phone (which you can fix by installing it from F-Droid etc.)
seba_dos1 2y ago
scp works well for me.
- grumbel 2y ago
  That requires having an account on the other machine. What's missing is anonymous scp, where the other side just opens up a directory, and you can copy into it. One can build something like this with rsyncd, but it's not a pretty shell one-liner to get it going and it still requires both devices to be on the same network.
  - seba_dos1 2y ago
    What I responded to was "wirelessly transferring files between a phone and a computer", assuming that I am the user at both ends of the transfer. If I want to share something with someone else, there's a "File Sharing" section in phone's settings that enables anonymous WebDAV sharing, and it works fine too. There's Bluetooth OBEX too, but that one's fiddly.
pca006132 2y ago
There are websites using WebRTC for p2p transfer.
kmarc 2y ago
I assume this is the same "problem". Most people (not the HN cohort) don't want to transfer "files", the abstraction of the file is either outdated for them or maybe even unnatural / unknown (younger generation). They might want to transfer (a better word: share) photos/videos, documents, etc. And for those they use specific apps and "the cloud". No "files" (for the sake of files), and barely any hierarchy of (folders etc). As long as the entity they want to share magically shows up on the another device or at the other person they want to share with, they are happy. They just skip two levels of abstraction ("this photo is a FILE and I will use USB to transfer it"). Maybe a far fetched analogy but this is why most of the drivers of an automatic don't really think about clutches and how the torque of the engine's output is converted. At least this is my perception (outside the IT bubble)
- afiori 2y ago
  I want to add something to this: abandoning the fire layer allows for richer custom flows (which to many are arguably worse) For example the file API does not allow a clean, uniform, and reliable way to associate a resource with some metadata
  - kmarc 2y ago
    The file API might not, but all major filesystems implemented some kind off Metadata attributes, IIRC Microsoft was wanting to heavily rely on that for "user space" stuff (e.g. Users leveraging it for semantic information about their files)
  - palata 2y ago
    I don't get that. How do you expect to abandon the file layer on your OS? Do you plan on rewriting Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS with a fundamentally new philosophy? If not, then you're not abandoning the file layer at all. You're just preventing people from benefitting from it.
  - ddingus 2y ago
    If we don't have files, then what? Seems to me we very rapidly arrive at records or entities. We see both these days in databases. Entities show up in CAD and simulation. Records show up in business tools of various kinds. All require a schema and serious dependencies flow from there. In CAD, for example, the database schema can change quite dramatically from version to version of the same software tool. And all this makes writing plug in tools or anything really painful. And forget exchanging native data between systems. STEP exists for that, and O God help you on a bigger project involving any old data The thing about files is they are basically EASY. And easy, when looking at where we are going, matters. A lot. Files can exist on pretty much anything. Paper tape, mag tape, all sorts of media, up to advanced storage tech. Databases are a different story. I am not convinced we are anywhere rear being ready for that huge leap. And I would normally say "forward" but on this? Nope! It would be a huge mess requiring we toss just about everything we have in use today
rakoo 2y ago
There's no formal standard, but I keep seeing this complaint from people who just haven't installed syncthing. At this point it's not inexistence but mere ignorance
- dist-epoch 2y ago
  It's not only about your personal devices. Sometimes you want to exchange files between a friend phone's and your computer.
  - rakoo 2y ago
    Which is also way way easier to do than all the existing solutions: create a folder on the computer, add the computer to the phone, share the folder with the phone. Anything you want to share goes in the folder.
numpad0 2y ago
Bluetooth FTP was widely supported until ~2009. All Nokia phones and many flip phones had it. iPhone did not, AOSP technically did, but carrier phones often had it disabled, and it slowly disappeared. Windows 11 still supports it, I think macOS too. Pairing is technically optional.
- ddingus 2y ago
  It does and I managed it recently. It was painful. I had to pair, or at least I think I did. Was fetching a file. off a flip phone. Doing these things without "file" gets weird quick. I also seem to recall an awesome Bluetooth control panel applet I used a few times in Windows XP. At the time I had a pretty spiffy Moto flip phone. It could be the computer keyboard, handle audio play and record and more. Pretty sure that all came from the phone driver. I do recall also using the computer in reverse the same way when the display was badly damaged. I could make phone calls, dialing with the computer and in general use the phone taped to the back of my laptop screen. Today, it is simpler, and far less robust.
  - numpad0 2y ago
    aw. it hurts my brain to think about those days somehow. An awesome panel must be BlueSoleil. There were Microsoft XP SP2 stack that were stable but featureless, Toshiba stack with (IIRC)SCMS-T DRM support, WIDCOMM stack that show up on search now but I had no experience with - apparently tied to specific dongles, and the IVT BlueSoleil stack with the orange sun floating against dark blue background. BlueSoleil was by far the most feature complete, and, as far as my interests back then were concerned, required for Wiimote on Windows. It was (not really)available as trialware but interoperability wasn't guaranteed so you would have had to pull dongle lottery until you hit a product with reasonably stable build of BlueSoleil if you had in mind a specific task to do in Bluetooth. Fun times... things do feel less robust these days. Software was much better tested back then.
    - ddingus 2y ago
      Yeah that seems familiar. One night on business travel, I decided to just play with the setup and really thought highly of it all. Then some years passed, I got a Blackberry Curve, then a Note 4 and by the time I looked back at Bluetooth. I HATED IT. Still do, though I am grudgingly working through basics, phone call, play audio, etc and the whole time looking at my still wire capable hardware thinking "not yet"
torginus 2y ago
This is an UX problem, not a technical problem. You could easily use Wifi to transfer files between devices quite fast, there's just no agreed upon open protocol for it. Afaik that's how AirDrop works.
tgv 2y ago
Airdrop works. Ok, it's platform bound, but I'm sure it could be ported. It's not such a big thing, though. I hardly use it, and young people don't seem to use it either. The stuff on their phone and laptop seem separate worlds, just like mine are. Might be because they don't know about it, though.
- palata 2y ago
  Because we keep them ignorant. We make sure they depend on our apps that they have to pay for. You wouldn't want them to know how to download music/movies without going through our paid streaming platforms, would you?
- fragmede 2y ago
  Hell, copy and paste works between iphone and MacOS if you've got the same icloud logged into both. Airplay is too cumbersome has been supplanted by long hold -> copy; ctrl-v, and the reverse. Works for images as well.
variaga 2y ago
Transferring files between a phone and a computer was a real use case, but since wireless usb was "exactly like regular usb but no wires" it wasn't any easier to set up file transfer than regular usb (harder, actually, since you had to do the wireless bonding), and wired usb would charge your phone battery while the files transferred whereas wireless usb would drain it.

> which makes the value proposition a lot less clear. Wirelessly transferring files between a phone and a computer seems like a big use case. Still no easy standard way of doing it.

dtech 2y ago

Imo cloud storage like Dropbox has 95% solved this use case for years, which is why alternative solutions haven't popped up.

beezlewax 2y ago
Needing to upload files to third party servers just to get them onto your personal computer doesn't solve the case. It just injects a middleman.
- mycatisblack 2y ago
  And only works when you’re connected to the internet.
- ahoef 2y ago
  How does it not solve the problem? The data shows up on the other end. The fact that you don't agree with the implementation is a different thing, but it does solve the case.
  - otabdeveloper4 2y ago
    > How does it not solve the problem? It "solves" it but in a way that's ten times slower and fundamentally unreliable.
  - dist-epoch 2y ago
    For small files maybe. As shocking as it may seem, most Dropbox users just have the free version, with very limited space. Same for Google Drive or One Drive.
coderatlarge 2y ago
Dropbox is unavailable to huge populations. also sharing private bits with a cloud service should not be necessary to transfer files locally between devices. at least user level file encryption should become straightforward on a mobile device which it is not today.

dirkt 2y ago

But that doesn't need new peripherals, I could do that in my home WLAN network if they'd just install standard software for it on the phone (which you can fix by installing it from F-Droid etc.)

seba_dos1 2y ago

scp works well for me.

grumbel 2y ago
That requires having an account on the other machine. What's missing is anonymous scp, where the other side just opens up a directory, and you can copy into it. One can build something like this with rsyncd, but it's not a pretty shell one-liner to get it going and it still requires both devices to be on the same network.
- seba_dos1 2y ago
  What I responded to was "wirelessly transferring files between a phone and a computer", assuming that I am the user at both ends of the transfer. If I want to share something with someone else, there's a "File Sharing" section in phone's settings that enables anonymous WebDAV sharing, and it works fine too. There's Bluetooth OBEX too, but that one's fiddly.

pca006132 2y ago

There are websites using WebRTC for p2p transfer.

kmarc 2y ago

I assume this is the same "problem". Most people (not the HN cohort) don't want to transfer "files", the abstraction of the file is either outdated for them or maybe even unnatural / unknown (younger generation). They might want to transfer (a better word: share) photos/videos, documents, etc. And for those they use specific apps and "the cloud". No "files" (for the sake of files), and barely any hierarchy of (folders etc). As long as the entity they want to share magically shows up on the another device or at the other person they want to share with, they are happy. They just skip two levels of abstraction ("this photo is a FILE and I will use USB to transfer it"). Maybe a far fetched analogy but this is why most of the drivers of an automatic don't really think about clutches and how the torque of the engine's output is converted. At least this is my perception (outside the IT bubble)

afiori 2y ago
I want to add something to this: abandoning the fire layer allows for richer custom flows (which to many are arguably worse) For example the file API does not allow a clean, uniform, and reliable way to associate a resource with some metadata
- kmarc 2y ago
  The file API might not, but all major filesystems implemented some kind off Metadata attributes, IIRC Microsoft was wanting to heavily rely on that for "user space" stuff (e.g. Users leveraging it for semantic information about their files)
- palata 2y ago
  I don't get that. How do you expect to abandon the file layer on your OS? Do you plan on rewriting Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS with a fundamentally new philosophy? If not, then you're not abandoning the file layer at all. You're just preventing people from benefitting from it.
- ddingus 2y ago
  If we don't have files, then what? Seems to me we very rapidly arrive at records or entities. We see both these days in databases. Entities show up in CAD and simulation. Records show up in business tools of various kinds. All require a schema and serious dependencies flow from there. In CAD, for example, the database schema can change quite dramatically from version to version of the same software tool. And all this makes writing plug in tools or anything really painful. And forget exchanging native data between systems. STEP exists for that, and O God help you on a bigger project involving any old data The thing about files is they are basically EASY. And easy, when looking at where we are going, matters. A lot. Files can exist on pretty much anything. Paper tape, mag tape, all sorts of media, up to advanced storage tech. Databases are a different story. I am not convinced we are anywhere rear being ready for that huge leap. And I would normally say "forward" but on this? Nope! It would be a huge mess requiring we toss just about everything we have in use today

rakoo 2y ago

There's no formal standard, but I keep seeing this complaint from people who just haven't installed syncthing. At this point it's not inexistence but mere ignorance

dist-epoch 2y ago
It's not only about your personal devices. Sometimes you want to exchange files between a friend phone's and your computer.
- rakoo 2y ago
  Which is also way way easier to do than all the existing solutions: create a folder on the computer, add the computer to the phone, share the folder with the phone. Anything you want to share goes in the folder.

numpad0 2y ago

Bluetooth FTP was widely supported until ~2009. All Nokia phones and many flip phones had it. iPhone did not, AOSP technically did, but carrier phones often had it disabled, and it slowly disappeared. Windows 11 still supports it, I think macOS too. Pairing is technically optional.

ddingus 2y ago
It does and I managed it recently. It was painful. I had to pair, or at least I think I did. Was fetching a file. off a flip phone. Doing these things without "file" gets weird quick. I also seem to recall an awesome Bluetooth control panel applet I used a few times in Windows XP. At the time I had a pretty spiffy Moto flip phone. It could be the computer keyboard, handle audio play and record and more. Pretty sure that all came from the phone driver. I do recall also using the computer in reverse the same way when the display was badly damaged. I could make phone calls, dialing with the computer and in general use the phone taped to the back of my laptop screen. Today, it is simpler, and far less robust.
- numpad0 2y ago
  aw. it hurts my brain to think about those days somehow. An awesome panel must be BlueSoleil. There were Microsoft XP SP2 stack that were stable but featureless, Toshiba stack with (IIRC)SCMS-T DRM support, WIDCOMM stack that show up on search now but I had no experience with - apparently tied to specific dongles, and the IVT BlueSoleil stack with the orange sun floating against dark blue background. BlueSoleil was by far the most feature complete, and, as far as my interests back then were concerned, required for Wiimote on Windows. It was (not really)available as trialware but interoperability wasn't guaranteed so you would have had to pull dongle lottery until you hit a product with reasonably stable build of BlueSoleil if you had in mind a specific task to do in Bluetooth. Fun times... things do feel less robust these days. Software was much better tested back then.
  - ddingus 2y ago
    Yeah that seems familiar. One night on business travel, I decided to just play with the setup and really thought highly of it all. Then some years passed, I got a Blackberry Curve, then a Note 4 and by the time I looked back at Bluetooth. I HATED IT. Still do, though I am grudgingly working through basics, phone call, play audio, etc and the whole time looking at my still wire capable hardware thinking "not yet"

torginus 2y ago

This is an UX problem, not a technical problem. You could easily use Wifi to transfer files between devices quite fast, there's just no agreed upon open protocol for it. Afaik that's how AirDrop works.

tgv 2y ago

Airdrop works. Ok, it's platform bound, but I'm sure it could be ported. It's not such a big thing, though. I hardly use it, and young people don't seem to use it either. The stuff on their phone and laptop seem separate worlds, just like mine are. Might be because they don't know about it, though.

palata 2y ago
Because we keep them ignorant. We make sure they depend on our apps that they have to pay for. You wouldn't want them to know how to download music/movies without going through our paid streaming platforms, would you?
fragmede 2y ago
Hell, copy and paste works between iphone and MacOS if you've got the same icloud logged into both. Airplay is too cumbersome has been supplanted by long hold -> copy; ctrl-v, and the reverse. Works for images as well.

variaga 2y ago

Transferring files between a phone and a computer was a real use case, but since wireless usb was "exactly like regular usb but no wires" it wasn't any easier to set up file transfer than regular usb (harder, actually, since you had to do the wireless bonding), and wired usb would charge your phone battery while the files transferred whereas wireless usb would drain it.