14 ms·

The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop

597 points by cyclecount 10mo ago

k310 10mo ago
I'll be happy when Airdrop works reliably on Apple equipment. It can't reliably work between two adjacent rooms in my home without arm-waving. A hundred or thousand mile trip through iCloud works tons better.
- tonyedgecombe 10mo ago
  It depends on Bluetooth to establish the connection so if you are out of Bluetooth range it won't work.
  - k310 10mo ago
    It's within range because it works, but requires some twisting and arm waving to get it to work from one room to the next, no Faraday shields in the home. Then again, I transferred 4 iPhone photos to the imac 2 feet away and it failed. Worked on the next try. It's flakey as hell, and this is a 3rd generation iPhone SE and M2 mac mini. Not exactly old. I really hate bluetooth. I got an old Time Capsule at the thrift store, that checked out but I haven't made use of it. It might be time. FWIW, I got PhotoSync app (not free) long ago so as to share photos with "everything" and it runs in the background on the mac, but I stupidly hold to the notion that whatever comes with the operating system otta work.
- teekert 10mo ago
  Yes same, you bump, you put iPhones on to op each other, you enable "findable by other". And still you may be messing around for minutes. Then a larger transfer starts... But fails half way for 6 times. It's the best way (if it works!) to transfer full quality live images quickly, but otherwise I'd be happier just using Signal.
MBCook 10mo ago
So they forced Apple to drop an Apple proprietary thing in favor of… a Wi-Fi standard Apple helped develop specifically to replace their proprietary thing. Not quite as strong as the headline makes the case sound.
- Nextgrid 10mo ago
  Apple was forced to upstream the standard because the writing was on the wall so may as well preempt it. It’d also a benefit for Apple, since once upstreamed it shares the maintenance burden across all participants.
- usrnm 10mo ago
  Apple also helped develop USB C more than a decade ago, they still had to be forced to actually use it in their phones. There is no contradiction here
  - llm_nerd 10mo ago
    Users all got to complain that the EU are the meanies responsible for their old wires and chargers and accessory no longer being compatible, but it seems infinitely more likely that Apple was going to adopt USB-C on largely the same schedule even if the EU didn't intercede. To be clear, Apple had already moved their laptops and computers to USB-C -- long in advance of almost any one else -- and had moved their iPad Pros and Air to USB-C, building out the accessory set supporting the same, years before the EU decree. Pretty convenient when they get to blame the EU for their smartphones making the utterly inevitable move.
    - dickersnoodle 10mo ago
      It's conceivably politically incorrect to use this reference, but Apple was begging the EU not to throw them into that briar patch.
      - llm_nerd 10mo ago
        Begging? Apple filed a couple of light objections -- basically a "don't regulate us, bro" -- and then moved on. Their resistance was laughably superficial Look, Apple is a predatory, extraordinarily greedy company, but these sorts of "thanks EU!" discussions are a riot. Thanks EU, for making Apple support a clone of an Apple feature that didn't exist until Apple made it, and for "forcing" Apple to transition their line to USB-C, which they were already almost completely done doing.
joejohnson 10mo ago
I wonder if it's related to Apple's change from AWDL to Wi-Fi Aware, but AirDrop seems much more reliable on iOS 26. I can send to multiple people at once and they often all succeed, but most importantly, if one transfer fails or is cancelled, I can retry and it works. In older versions of iOS, a failed transfer seemed to block all future attempts until the phone was restarted.
- TheJoeMan 10mo ago
  Have you tried the NFC-bumping the tops of the iPhones together yet? So far I’ve had superb success rate on iOS18.
- fragmede 10mo ago
  the weird one for me is that if I hit share, and then hit the airdrop target, it doesn't work, but if go into airdrop and then select the same target, then works. Apple, fix your shit, yo.
  - jaffa2 10mo ago
    Yep seen this before too.
- madeofpalk 10mo ago
  Is there any proof that this change actually happened?
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
star-glider 10mo ago
I'm libertarian, but I have to say watching the EU torment Apple has been delightful and one of the stronger arguments for muscular regulatory action. The USB-C thing just made everything better. It cost Apple basically nothing---maybe a few million/year of profit, which for a company that's worth $3 trillion is nothing, and it made my and many other people's lives quite a bit more convenient. Same with this Airdrop thing, and same with RCS (although there's some reporting that RCS had more to do with China than the EU). Eventually, someone is going to break open iMessage, and poor Apple will actually have to compete again for customers. Maybe they'll innovate something more interesting than Airpods Ultra Mega Pro Max or a thinner phone.
- tracerbulletx 10mo ago
  You're a libertarian but regulatory intervention made everything about the market better and a better world for everyone involved with a relatively small change that was being stubbornly refused by a company for a small marginal benefit to themselves?
  - CharlesW 10mo ago
    We call them "LINO"s.
    - firefax 10mo ago
      Left libertarianism is compatible with such views. Basically, libertarian on social issues paired with a preference for a decentralized economy, as opposed to a "tankie" (Stalinist) style centrally planned economy.
      - closingreunion 10mo ago
        [dead]
      - baiac 10mo ago
        What is “left libertarianism” supposed to look like? I find this concept baffling. The end result of libertarianism is nothing like what the left is supposed to support.
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
eastbound 10mo ago
So what is it? Comanagement between EU representatives and Apple employees? It looks like the German model where unions co-manage the companies. On the paper it looks great, but the problem is the EU is not necessarily representing its citizens. It’s great for my Apple products, but I’m also paying for an entire lavish class of superior citizen in Brussels who implement laws written by lobbies.
- lxgr 10mo ago
  > the problem is the EU is not necessarily representing its citizens. Yes, EU citizens probably absolutely love not being able to conveniently share files between Android and iOS. > I’m also paying for an entire lavish class of superior citizen in Brussels who implement laws written by lobbies. What lobbies, in this particular case? Google? Samsung?
- kergonath 10mo ago
  > Comanagement between EU representatives and Apple employees? Whatever gave you this impression? That’s not what the story is saying at all. > the EU is not necessarily representing its citizens It is not supposed to. The EU is a group of states, not citizens. If you want your voice to really count, lobby your national government, which has more say in the councils of ministers or the council of Europe than the MEPs have. > I’m also paying for an entire lavish class of superior citizen in Brussels who implement laws written by lobbies. How big is that "entire lavish class"? Just to know how upset I need to be. Also, which law was "written by lobbies"?
jeroenhd 10mo ago
An additional benefit is that the Wi-Fi standard also means that the weird account requirements on Google's Nearby Share can be avoided by independent implementations (i.e. on Windows or Linux or maybe rooted Android, iOS and macOS already have it of course). "Contacts only mode" will always be a challenge, but at least the "I just want to share a file without Google watching me" use case is now resolved by Google implementing a standard that doesn't involve them. Unfortunately, this is Pixel 10 exclusive for now, for some reason. I expect Samsung to pick this up eventually as well, but I'm not sure if Google will be able to backport this tech through Google Play Services the way they did with Nearby Share on older phones.
- gertop 10mo ago
  Have you confirmed that the new feature works without an account or is that speculation? The account requirement for nearby share never made sense yet they still did it the way...
  - jeroenhd 10mo ago
    The account requirement for nearby share is, as I understand it, to enable "contacts only" mode, which is how you prevent people from receiving random dickpics the second they try out the protocol and permanently turn the feature off afterwards. I think NS also has some kind of cloud transfer backup connection in case local transfers don't work (using Samsung's cloud), but I'm not 100% sure if that's related. The account requirement can already be avoided using existing implementations of standard QuickShare (i.e. https://henriqueclaranhan.github.io/rquickshare/ https://henriqueclaranhan.github.io/rquickshare/) but those are limited to devices sharing the same WiFi connection. However, as there is no contact sharing between iOS and Android, interoperability basically forces Google to pick between "Google account optional" and "doesn't work with iOS".
- sorenjan 10mo ago
  Qualcomm has confirmed it's coming to Snapdragon phones soon[0], which maybe hints that it's dependent on the SoC drivers? Samsung uses a mix of Snapdragon and their own Exynos, but I can't see them not releasing it to their Snapdragon phones when others do, and then they pretty much have to release it to their Exynos phones too. [0] https://www.notebookcheck.net/Qualcomm-confirms-Quick-Share-to-AirDrop-file-transfer-feature-is-coming-to-Snapdragon-powered-devices.1168833.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Qualcomm-confirms-Quick-Share-...
mensetmanusman 10mo ago
Will this help or hinder the CCP’s strong arming of Apple to hinder airdrop?
thinkindie 10mo ago
> If I had to guess why neither of Google’s Quick Share posts mentions Wi-Fi interoperability standards or the DMA, it may be because Google has been complaining about various aspects of the law and its enforcement since before it was even passed This is telling a lot about US companies complaining about EU laws.
madeofpalk 10mo ago
People keep mentioning Wi-Fi Aware with this, but so far haven't seen anyone actually prove that this is the case. Apple undoubtedly added Wi-Fi Aware support to iOS https://developer.apple.com/documentation/WiFiAware https://developer.apple.com/documentation/WiFiAware, but its not clear whether iOS actually supports AirDrop over Wi-Fi Aware. Apple clearly hasn't completely dropped AWDL for AirDrop, because you can still AirDrop from iOS 26 to earlier devices. Note that the Ars Technica article never directly makes the claim that Apple supports Airdrop over Wi-Fi Aware. The title is two independent statements - "The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop" - that's true. > Google doesn’t mention it in either Quick Share post, but if you’re wondering why it’s suddenly possible for Quick Share to work with AirDrop, it can almost certainly be credited to European Union regulations imposed under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Again, they're just theorising. They never directly make the claim. Would love on Hacker News for someone to do some Hacking and actually figure it out for real!
- internet2000 10mo ago
  It's frustrating how much people want this to be an EU win they'll fabricate evidence. The same happened with RCS in iOS, everybody jumped in to credit it to the EU, when you can find the document spelling out how RCS is a requirement for China.
  - echelon 10mo ago
    I don't care which sovereign state or union forces the trillion dollar tech giant to behave. I'm just glad it happened. And I applaud China if this was their victory. I want it to happen with a thousand times more intensity for Apple and Google. We should own these devices. We shouldn't be subsistence farmers on the most important device category in the world. They need to be opened up to competition, standards, right to repair, privacy, web app installs, browser choice, messaging, etc. etc. They shouldn't be strong arming tiny developers or the entire automotive industry. It's vastly unfair. And this strip mining impacts us as consumers.
    - nozzlegear 10mo ago
ChrisArchitect 10mo ago
[dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45994854 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45994854
IshKebab 10mo ago
The DMA also forces them to have interoperable end-to-end encrypted group video call support in like 5 years or something insane. No idea how that's supposed to happen!
- SoKamil 10mo ago
  Telegram implemented such feature. https://core.telegram.org/api/end-to-end/group-calls https://core.telegram.org/api/end-to-end/group-calls
  - Aloisius 10mo ago
    The problem isn't E2E encrypted group video calls. FaceTime supports that. The issue is interoperability with E2E encryption. If Apple says sure, implement this FaceTime spec. Facebook does the same thing, go ahead and implement Messenger video chat. Now you have the Android NewVideoChat app which supports its own protocol, Facebook's and Apple's. A user with NewVideoChat tries to invite a NewVideoChat user, an Apple user and a Facebook user to a video chat. Except Facebook Messenger's app doesn't support Apple's Facetime app doesn't support Facebook Messenger, so you run into some issues. Something needs to dupe the stream out to all three services which use radically different payloads and encryption methods - and they have to do it without breaking end-to-end encryption. Do it at the client-side and the Android app users will need to dupe their own streams three times and at least one user will need to relay the other two other streams, with all the bandwidth and latency issues that entails. Do it on the server side and you somehow need to translate between protocols (and possibly codecs!) without decrypting them. And if your video group chat supports private messaging between a subset of participants, you can end up in a situation where a Facebook user wants to send something to a Facetime user without the NewVideoChat user seeing it.. which is a bit of a problem.
ChrisArchitect 10mo ago
[dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45994854 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45994854
- input_sh 10mo ago
  [dupe] of your own comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46062963 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46062963
- e12e 10mo ago
  The better dupe (linked in TFA) - from March: > Cross-Platform P2P Wi-Fi: How the EU Killed AWDL https://www.ditto.com/blog/cross-platform-p2p-wi-fi-how-the-eu-killed-awdl https://www.ditto.com/blog/cross-platform-p2p-wi-fi-how-the-... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43505022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43505022
nova22033 10mo ago
can the EU pass a law forcing apple to make AirDrop work between two ios devices?
SunshineTheCat 10mo ago
[flagged]
- nikau 10mo ago
  Is the eu or apple the toddler here?
notepad0x90 10mo ago
Look, I don't like some of the things the EU is doing and I think Apple should consider (along with other tech companies) selling products tailed to the EU, Asia and rest of the world. In the long-run, it might be cheaper. That said, they are setting a good example of legislating for tech. We should be doing a lot of that here in the US. I don't need a bulletproof, ultra-secure, end-to-end encrypted, formally verified phone (although that would be nice). As a boring regular person, I want to not have to need all of that because my government will imprison people that violate my rights. But more on-topic, the FTC (EDIT: FCC) exists to regulate among other things, wireless comms, so this would be something they should be legislating. Although, putting on my tech hat, I need to re-state that I disagree with this move. I want tech companies to experiment and use faster, more secure, more reliable comms tech without having to worry about compatibility. It is in my interest as a consumer. Lightning was a superior technology to USB-C, we don't have it now because the EU forced apple's hands. I don't want to lose out on good tech. The EU should have instead forced everyone else to use lightning if they want things simpler. Why is the EU intent on having inferior tech, inferior capability, inferior pay, inferior innovation-friendly environment. They have the power to demand better things and provide them for their people. The compromise isn't needed. At the risk of offending the HN crowd, I'll even say that the EU shouldn't support open-source things unless they are actually the superior tech. You can't eat or pay your bills with ideals. If commercial/properietary tech is better for europeans, that is what the EU should focus on. I will drive European or Japanese cars that are better than American cars, I don't mind doing the same with tech, except with Europe that's getting more and more rare. What happened to Nokia and Ericsson. NL has ASML, wouldn't it be nice if we had a TSMC competitor in Europe as well? I don't want to keep going on, but I hope my point is clear. Competition is good, Android shouldn't need to support AirDrop, it should come up with a better alternative and leave iPhone users wondering why Android's solution is faster and works at greater distances. Same with iMessage compatibility. Instead competition, the EU is wanting forced mediocrity. They are within their rights for sure, but it isn't the best thing to do. I only wish they did the same thing with electrical outlets and forced the world to use one mediocre standard :)
- jjtheblunt 10mo ago
  > the FTC exists to regulate among other things, wireless comms FCC purview?
fleahunter 10mo ago
[flagged]
- yaro330 10mo ago
  Google most likely reimplemented AWDL, and the article is wrong. Sure the EU's actions will affect the optics, but Apple will be in the clear if they decide to nuke this.
  - fundatus 10mo ago
    If that is true it now is much harder for Apple to nuke this though. Because all eyes would be on them.
- anomaly_ 10mo ago
  If you want to airdrop android users just buy an android mate
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
foxandmouse 10mo ago
Pretty sure this was debunked: https://androiddev.social/@MishaalRahman/115593737977641823 https://androiddev.social/@MishaalRahman/115593737977641823
shevy-java 10mo ago
The more tragic thing is that the US government really does not care about consumers in general - otherwise they would have ensured standards even for the big megacorporations to adhere to.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
- dylan604 10mo ago
  Nothing could support this more than eliminating the department that was setup to financially protect consumers.
- MBCook 10mo ago
  We were staring. People voted against it. Bigly.
- cbeach 10mo ago
  And the consequences? The World's favourite technology is designed by Americans in America by America-headquarted companies. And then the rest of the world buys it and loves it. The UK has ARM. The Netherlands has ASML. But those are B2B suppliers. Europe, with it's regulatory overreach, has very few consumer technology companies of any consequence
dzonga 10mo ago
the real kick to the teeth for apple is when they will be forced to adopt different browser engines across all markets. btw safari is a fine browser but on iOS it seems crippled a bit. we are already getting there with support for web-gpu.
- sillyfluke 10mo ago
  >btw safari is a fine browser but on iOS it seems crippled a bit. it's not a fine browser if laymen have to update the OS just to get a new browser update.
  - dzonga 10mo ago
    sadly, I agree with your take.
accrual 10mo ago
Imagine the worldly gains of allowing such an amazing technology to permeate society. Ah, well, that's against the interests of the shareholders. It's better to lock shit down and earn a dollar than precipitate betterment for human kind. The dollar! All hail!
daft_pink 10mo ago
Airdrop support is a really weak reason to switch to Android. Just sayin’
grimblee 10mo ago
Oh, look what "over-regulation" does, forcing companies to comply to standards so they can't vendor lock-in their users (this happened with the iphone charging port too, from the apple specific port to usb-c). Guess this type of consumer-benefic changes wouldn't happen in the land of "freedom".
- pfannkuchen 10mo ago
  A positive effect from regulation does not rebut the general argument against government regulation of industry. The problem with regulation isn’t that there are never any positive effects, of course there are. The problem is it’s impossible to reliably avoid adding substantial friction to life via overly broad regulation that is not applicable but has to be followed anyway, or outdated but still-in-effect regulation that is not applicable but has to be followed anyway, at least. If this only bothered huge companies then I would say cost of doing business, who cares, etc, but it actually affects things like how cities and towns are designed, how expensive housing is, how expensive medical treatment is, etc.
  - compootr 10mo ago
    Even though overly broad regulation is a risk, I don't believe little/no regulation is an option either. I don't think the US's consumer protection mechanisms work, and I'm happy to accept the downsides of the EU's systems that come with the upsides of regulation.
  - kelnos 10mo ago
    It's unclear exactly what you're arguing, but I think if you are arguing that, because of the unavoidable substantial friction caused by regulation, we shouldn't have any regulation of industry at all... I think it's trivial to find examples where banning all regulation of industry would make the world a much, much worse place. Much worse than the friction.
    - nickpp 10mo ago
      > It's unclear exactly what you're arguing Actually, it's perfectly clear to me. > we shouldn't have any regulation Nope, he's not saying that at all. He's just saying that any regulation (no matter how necessary, well intended or even perfect it is) has a cost. And that cost is accumulating across all regulations. Furthermore, that cost is easily supported by large incumbents (big fans of regulation, btw) but it hurts startups the most. Thus the more regulations a market has, the fewer startups will have. Fewer startups means less competition. Less competition means less innovation, fewer products and higher prices. We can easily see this effect unfolding in the housing, education or health markets. Bottom line is: we must take those second order effects of regulation into consideration when talking about it.
poolnoodle 10mo ago
This is false. Google just reverse-engineered it.
fmajid 10mo ago
I've ditched AirDrop for LocalSend, which is universally cross-platform (iOS, macOS, Linux, Android) and works very well. It's not a complete substitute, it doesn't work in the case of completely casual sharing between devices that are not connected to a shared WiFi network, however.
- chasil 10mo ago
  I did not know that LocalSend had been ported to iOS and MacOS. I had previously used the built-in webserver for transfers from Android to Apple. I do have much greater luck with LocalSend transfers when I tether them to my own WiFi prior to transfer.
  - fmajid 10mo ago
    Yes. The only caveat is that since LocalSend isn't blessed by Apple, it isn't automatically invoked and you have to start it manually to receive.
amaccuish 10mo ago
Next up please do streaming. Chromecast seems so locked down so take AirPlay and make it a standard. Then instead of just opening up NFC, make Google and Apple Wallet support plugins, so users can have one interface with all their cards but not tied to one payment system.
- fennecfoxy 10mo ago
  >Chromecast seems so locked down so take AirPlay and make it a standard Weird thing to say given that AirPlay is also locked down as well...they're both the same. But I agree with the overall sentiment; a common wireless streaming standard would be amazing. It would mean I can use more devices to throw Samsung DEX at. Hell, if all monitors/TVs/displays came with basic "receive a standard stream from wifi" support that would be so great for consumers, reduces friction so much.
flobosg 10mo ago
Discussion from last week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45994854 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45994854
ptx 10mo ago
So apparently they use Bluetooth to establish the connection and WiFi for the data transfer. This sounds a lot like the "Alternative MAC/PHY" feature which was added in Bluetooth 3.0 and then removed in Bluetooth 5.3 [1] due to low uptake. Why didn't the standard Bluetooth way of doing this gain any traction? What was wrong with it? [1] https://www.bluetooth.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Bluetooth_5.3_Feature_Enhancements_Update.pdf https://www.bluetooth.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Bluetoo...
fennecfoxy 10mo ago
Great! Apple is happy to use the regular Wifi standard, regular Bluetooth standard, USB standard (which they were "planning to anyway" even tho it perfectly lined up with being forced to). They support media standards like mp4, jpeg, png etc. ALL companies should be beholden to common standards of interoperability. It infuriates me that I can plug my Android phone into Windows and it reads it just fine but that plugging it into my Mac does nothing because a bunch of executives are circle jerking each other; this stuff isn't good for US, the consumers. How can we have that cool future where we swipe a media file over towards a person in AR and have it automatically sent to them when we're allowing companies to use the standards they like and dodge ones they don't so that they can create a "platfoooorm" hurr de durr. The "platform" is the entire fucking ecosystem of devices out there.
CarlitosHighway 10mo ago
[flagged]
noname120 10mo ago
Has already been possible for a while: https://github.com/aylishime/WarpShare https://github.com/aylishime/WarpShare The trick is that it doesn’t use AWDL: macOS (but not iOS) also supports AirDrop via local network, although it’s not enabled by default: https://github.com/vinint/MoKee-WarpShare/issues/3#issuecomment-1005877802 https://github.com/vinint/MoKee-WarpShare/issues/3#issuecomm...
closingreunion 10mo ago
This is honestly one of those tiny things that make it really hard to even consider looking outside of the Apple ecosystem. I'm beginning to divest from apple, and this is a big help.
masonwan 10mo ago
Rally can't trust Apple making any standard. They always want to make more money than it is worth, and create demands which eventually causes monopoly and waste.
1vuio0pswjnm7 10mo ago
Perhaps there is another article with a title something like "Evidence that self-regulation works: Apple, Google adopt new WiFi standards"
rob44 10mo ago
[dead]

597 points by cyclecount 10mo ago

k310 10mo ago

I'll be happy when Airdrop works reliably on Apple equipment. It can't reliably work between two adjacent rooms in my home without arm-waving. A hundred or thousand mile trip through iCloud works tons better.

tonyedgecombe 10mo ago
It depends on Bluetooth to establish the connection so if you are out of Bluetooth range it won't work.
- k310 10mo ago
  It's within range because it works, but requires some twisting and arm waving to get it to work from one room to the next, no Faraday shields in the home. Then again, I transferred 4 iPhone photos to the imac 2 feet away and it failed. Worked on the next try. It's flakey as hell, and this is a 3rd generation iPhone SE and M2 mac mini. Not exactly old. I really hate bluetooth. I got an old Time Capsule at the thrift store, that checked out but I haven't made use of it. It might be time. FWIW, I got PhotoSync app (not free) long ago so as to share photos with "everything" and it runs in the background on the mac, but I stupidly hold to the notion that whatever comes with the operating system otta work.
teekert 10mo ago
Yes same, you bump, you put iPhones on to op each other, you enable "findable by other". And still you may be messing around for minutes. Then a larger transfer starts... But fails half way for 6 times. It's the best way (if it works!) to transfer full quality live images quickly, but otherwise I'd be happier just using Signal.

MBCook 10mo ago

So they forced Apple to drop an Apple proprietary thing in favor of… a Wi-Fi standard Apple helped develop specifically to replace their proprietary thing. Not quite as strong as the headline makes the case sound.

Nextgrid 10mo ago
Apple was forced to upstream the standard because the writing was on the wall so may as well preempt it. It’d also a benefit for Apple, since once upstreamed it shares the maintenance burden across all participants.
usrnm 10mo ago
Apple also helped develop USB C more than a decade ago, they still had to be forced to actually use it in their phones. There is no contradiction here
- llm_nerd 10mo ago
  Users all got to complain that the EU are the meanies responsible for their old wires and chargers and accessory no longer being compatible, but it seems infinitely more likely that Apple was going to adopt USB-C on largely the same schedule even if the EU didn't intercede. To be clear, Apple had already moved their laptops and computers to USB-C -- long in advance of almost any one else -- and had moved their iPad Pros and Air to USB-C, building out the accessory set supporting the same, years before the EU decree. Pretty convenient when they get to blame the EU for their smartphones making the utterly inevitable move.
  - dickersnoodle 10mo ago
    It's conceivably politically incorrect to use this reference, but Apple was begging the EU not to throw them into that briar patch.
    - llm_nerd 10mo ago
      Begging? Apple filed a couple of light objections -- basically a "don't regulate us, bro" -- and then moved on. Their resistance was laughably superficial Look, Apple is a predatory, extraordinarily greedy company, but these sorts of "thanks EU!" discussions are a riot. Thanks EU, for making Apple support a clone of an Apple feature that didn't exist until Apple made it, and for "forcing" Apple to transition their line to USB-C, which they were already almost completely done doing.

joejohnson 10mo ago

I wonder if it's related to Apple's change from AWDL to Wi-Fi Aware, but AirDrop seems much more reliable on iOS 26. I can send to multiple people at once and they often all succeed, but most importantly, if one transfer fails or is cancelled, I can retry and it works. In older versions of iOS, a failed transfer seemed to block all future attempts until the phone was restarted.

TheJoeMan 10mo ago
Have you tried the NFC-bumping the tops of the iPhones together yet? So far I’ve had superb success rate on iOS18.
fragmede 10mo ago
the weird one for me is that if I hit share, and then hit the airdrop target, it doesn't work, but if go into airdrop and then select the same target, then works. Apple, fix your shit, yo.
- jaffa2 10mo ago
  Yep seen this before too.
madeofpalk 10mo ago
Is there any proof that this change actually happened?
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]

star-glider 10mo ago

I'm libertarian, but I have to say watching the EU torment Apple has been delightful and one of the stronger arguments for muscular regulatory action. The USB-C thing just made everything better. It cost Apple basically nothing---maybe a few million/year of profit, which for a company that's worth $3 trillion is nothing, and it made my and many other people's lives quite a bit more convenient. Same with this Airdrop thing, and same with RCS (although there's some reporting that RCS had more to do with China than the EU). Eventually, someone is going to break open iMessage, and poor Apple will actually have to compete again for customers. Maybe they'll innovate something more interesting than Airpods Ultra Mega Pro Max or a thinner phone.

tracerbulletx 10mo ago
You're a libertarian but regulatory intervention made everything about the market better and a better world for everyone involved with a relatively small change that was being stubbornly refused by a company for a small marginal benefit to themselves?
- CharlesW 10mo ago
  We call them "LINO"s.
  - firefax 10mo ago
    Left libertarianism is compatible with such views. Basically, libertarian on social issues paired with a preference for a decentralized economy, as opposed to a "tankie" (Stalinist) style centrally planned economy.
    - closingreunion 10mo ago
      [dead]
    - baiac 10mo ago
      What is “left libertarianism” supposed to look like? I find this concept baffling. The end result of libertarianism is nothing like what the left is supposed to support.

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]

eastbound 10mo ago

So what is it? Comanagement between EU representatives and Apple employees? It looks like the German model where unions co-manage the companies. On the paper it looks great, but the problem is the EU is not necessarily representing its citizens. It’s great for my Apple products, but I’m also paying for an entire lavish class of superior citizen in Brussels who implement laws written by lobbies.

lxgr 10mo ago
> the problem is the EU is not necessarily representing its citizens. Yes, EU citizens probably absolutely love not being able to conveniently share files between Android and iOS. > I’m also paying for an entire lavish class of superior citizen in Brussels who implement laws written by lobbies. What lobbies, in this particular case? Google? Samsung?
kergonath 10mo ago
> Comanagement between EU representatives and Apple employees? Whatever gave you this impression? That’s not what the story is saying at all. > the EU is not necessarily representing its citizens It is not supposed to. The EU is a group of states, not citizens. If you want your voice to really count, lobby your national government, which has more say in the councils of ministers or the council of Europe than the MEPs have. > I’m also paying for an entire lavish class of superior citizen in Brussels who implement laws written by lobbies. How big is that "entire lavish class"? Just to know how upset I need to be. Also, which law was "written by lobbies"?

jeroenhd 10mo ago

An additional benefit is that the Wi-Fi standard also means that the weird account requirements on Google's Nearby Share can be avoided by independent implementations (i.e. on Windows or Linux or maybe rooted Android, iOS and macOS already have it of course). "Contacts only mode" will always be a challenge, but at least the "I just want to share a file without Google watching me" use case is now resolved by Google implementing a standard that doesn't involve them. Unfortunately, this is Pixel 10 exclusive for now, for some reason. I expect Samsung to pick this up eventually as well, but I'm not sure if Google will be able to backport this tech through Google Play Services the way they did with Nearby Share on older phones.

gertop 10mo ago
Have you confirmed that the new feature works without an account or is that speculation? The account requirement for nearby share never made sense yet they still did it the way...
- jeroenhd 10mo ago
  The account requirement for nearby share is, as I understand it, to enable "contacts only" mode, which is how you prevent people from receiving random dickpics the second they try out the protocol and permanently turn the feature off afterwards. I think NS also has some kind of cloud transfer backup connection in case local transfers don't work (using Samsung's cloud), but I'm not 100% sure if that's related. The account requirement can already be avoided using existing implementations of standard QuickShare (i.e. https://henriqueclaranhan.github.io/rquickshare/ https://henriqueclaranhan.github.io/rquickshare/) but those are limited to devices sharing the same WiFi connection. However, as there is no contact sharing between iOS and Android, interoperability basically forces Google to pick between "Google account optional" and "doesn't work with iOS".
sorenjan 10mo ago
Qualcomm has confirmed it's coming to Snapdragon phones soon[0], which maybe hints that it's dependent on the SoC drivers? Samsung uses a mix of Snapdragon and their own Exynos, but I can't see them not releasing it to their Snapdragon phones when others do, and then they pretty much have to release it to their Exynos phones too. [0] https://www.notebookcheck.net/Qualcomm-confirms-Quick-Share-to-AirDrop-file-transfer-feature-is-coming-to-Snapdragon-powered-devices.1168833.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Qualcomm-confirms-Quick-Share-...

mensetmanusman 10mo ago

Will this help or hinder the CCP’s strong arming of Apple to hinder airdrop?

thinkindie 10mo ago

> If I had to guess why neither of Google’s Quick Share posts mentions Wi-Fi interoperability standards or the DMA, it may be because Google has been complaining about various aspects of the law and its enforcement since before it was even passed This is telling a lot about US companies complaining about EU laws.

madeofpalk 10mo ago

People keep mentioning Wi-Fi Aware with this, but so far haven't seen anyone actually prove that this is the case. Apple undoubtedly added Wi-Fi Aware support to iOS https://developer.apple.com/documentation/WiFiAware https://developer.apple.com/documentation/WiFiAware, but its not clear whether iOS actually supports AirDrop over Wi-Fi Aware. Apple clearly hasn't completely dropped AWDL for AirDrop, because you can still AirDrop from iOS 26 to earlier devices. Note that the Ars Technica article never directly makes the claim that Apple supports Airdrop over Wi-Fi Aware. The title is two independent statements - "The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop" - that's true. > Google doesn’t mention it in either Quick Share post, but if you’re wondering why it’s suddenly possible for Quick Share to work with AirDrop, it can almost certainly be credited to European Union regulations imposed under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Again, they're just theorising. They never directly make the claim. Would love on Hacker News for someone to do some Hacking and actually figure it out for real!

internet2000 10mo ago
It's frustrating how much people want this to be an EU win they'll fabricate evidence. The same happened with RCS in iOS, everybody jumped in to credit it to the EU, when you can find the document spelling out how RCS is a requirement for China.
- echelon 10mo ago
  I don't care which sovereign state or union forces the trillion dollar tech giant to behave. I'm just glad it happened. And I applaud China if this was their victory. I want it to happen with a thousand times more intensity for Apple and Google. We should own these devices. We shouldn't be subsistence farmers on the most important device category in the world. They need to be opened up to competition, standards, right to repair, privacy, web app installs, browser choice, messaging, etc. etc. They shouldn't be strong arming tiny developers or the entire automotive industry. It's vastly unfair. And this strip mining impacts us as consumers.
  - nozzlegear 10mo ago

ChrisArchitect 10mo ago

[dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45994854 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45994854

IshKebab 10mo ago

The DMA also forces them to have interoperable end-to-end encrypted group video call support in like 5 years or something insane. No idea how that's supposed to happen!

SoKamil 10mo ago
Telegram implemented such feature. https://core.telegram.org/api/end-to-end/group-calls https://core.telegram.org/api/end-to-end/group-calls
- Aloisius 10mo ago
  The problem isn't E2E encrypted group video calls. FaceTime supports that. The issue is interoperability with E2E encryption. If Apple says sure, implement this FaceTime spec. Facebook does the same thing, go ahead and implement Messenger video chat. Now you have the Android NewVideoChat app which supports its own protocol, Facebook's and Apple's. A user with NewVideoChat tries to invite a NewVideoChat user, an Apple user and a Facebook user to a video chat. Except Facebook Messenger's app doesn't support Apple's Facetime app doesn't support Facebook Messenger, so you run into some issues. Something needs to dupe the stream out to all three services which use radically different payloads and encryption methods - and they have to do it without breaking end-to-end encryption. Do it at the client-side and the Android app users will need to dupe their own streams three times and at least one user will need to relay the other two other streams, with all the bandwidth and latency issues that entails. Do it on the server side and you somehow need to translate between protocols (and possibly codecs!) without decrypting them. And if your video group chat supports private messaging between a subset of participants, you can end up in a situation where a Facebook user wants to send something to a Facetime user without the NewVideoChat user seeing it.. which is a bit of a problem.

ChrisArchitect 10mo ago

[dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45994854 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45994854

input_sh 10mo ago
[dupe] of your own comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46062963 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46062963
e12e 10mo ago
The better dupe (linked in TFA) - from March: > Cross-Platform P2P Wi-Fi: How the EU Killed AWDL https://www.ditto.com/blog/cross-platform-p2p-wi-fi-how-the-eu-killed-awdl https://www.ditto.com/blog/cross-platform-p2p-wi-fi-how-the-... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43505022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43505022

nova22033 10mo ago

can the EU pass a law forcing apple to make AirDrop work between two ios devices?

SunshineTheCat 10mo ago

[flagged]

nikau 10mo ago
Is the eu or apple the toddler here?

notepad0x90 10mo ago

Look, I don't like some of the things the EU is doing and I think Apple should consider (along with other tech companies) selling products tailed to the EU, Asia and rest of the world. In the long-run, it might be cheaper. That said, they are setting a good example of legislating for tech. We should be doing a lot of that here in the US. I don't need a bulletproof, ultra-secure, end-to-end encrypted, formally verified phone (although that would be nice). As a boring regular person, I want to not have to need all of that because my government will imprison people that violate my rights. But more on-topic, the FTC (EDIT: FCC) exists to regulate among other things, wireless comms, so this would be something they should be legislating. Although, putting on my tech hat, I need to re-state that I disagree with this move. I want tech companies to experiment and use faster, more secure, more reliable comms tech without having to worry about compatibility. It is in my interest as a consumer. Lightning was a superior technology to USB-C, we don't have it now because the EU forced apple's hands. I don't want to lose out on good tech. The EU should have instead forced everyone else to use lightning if they want things simpler. Why is the EU intent on having inferior tech, inferior capability, inferior pay, inferior innovation-friendly environment. They have the power to demand better things and provide them for their people. The compromise isn't needed. At the risk of offending the HN crowd, I'll even say that the EU shouldn't support open-source things unless they are actually the superior tech. You can't eat or pay your bills with ideals. If commercial/properietary tech is better for europeans, that is what the EU should focus on. I will drive European or Japanese cars that are better than American cars, I don't mind doing the same with tech, except with Europe that's getting more and more rare. What happened to Nokia and Ericsson. NL has ASML, wouldn't it be nice if we had a TSMC competitor in Europe as well? I don't want to keep going on, but I hope my point is clear. Competition is good, Android shouldn't need to support AirDrop, it should come up with a better alternative and leave iPhone users wondering why Android's solution is faster and works at greater distances. Same with iMessage compatibility. Instead competition, the EU is wanting forced mediocrity. They are within their rights for sure, but it isn't the best thing to do. I only wish they did the same thing with electrical outlets and forced the world to use one mediocre standard :)

jjtheblunt 10mo ago
> the FTC exists to regulate among other things, wireless comms FCC purview?

fleahunter 10mo ago

[flagged]

yaro330 10mo ago
Google most likely reimplemented AWDL, and the article is wrong. Sure the EU's actions will affect the optics, but Apple will be in the clear if they decide to nuke this.
- fundatus 10mo ago
  If that is true it now is much harder for Apple to nuke this though. Because all eyes would be on them.
anomaly_ 10mo ago
If you want to airdrop android users just buy an android mate

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]

foxandmouse 10mo ago

Pretty sure this was debunked: https://androiddev.social/@MishaalRahman/115593737977641823 https://androiddev.social/@MishaalRahman/115593737977641823

shevy-java 10mo ago

The more tragic thing is that the US government really does not care about consumers in general - otherwise they would have ensured standards even for the big megacorporations to adhere to.

deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
dylan604 10mo ago
Nothing could support this more than eliminating the department that was setup to financially protect consumers.
MBCook 10mo ago
We were staring. People voted against it. Bigly.
cbeach 10mo ago
And the consequences? The World's favourite technology is designed by Americans in America by America-headquarted companies. And then the rest of the world buys it and loves it. The UK has ARM. The Netherlands has ASML. But those are B2B suppliers. Europe, with it's regulatory overreach, has very few consumer technology companies of any consequence

dzonga 10mo ago

the real kick to the teeth for apple is when they will be forced to adopt different browser engines across all markets. btw safari is a fine browser but on iOS it seems crippled a bit. we are already getting there with support for web-gpu.

sillyfluke 10mo ago
>btw safari is a fine browser but on iOS it seems crippled a bit. it's not a fine browser if laymen have to update the OS just to get a new browser update.
- dzonga 10mo ago
  sadly, I agree with your take.

accrual 10mo ago

Imagine the worldly gains of allowing such an amazing technology to permeate society. Ah, well, that's against the interests of the shareholders. It's better to lock shit down and earn a dollar than precipitate betterment for human kind. The dollar! All hail!

daft_pink 10mo ago

Airdrop support is a really weak reason to switch to Android. Just sayin’

grimblee 10mo ago

Oh, look what "over-regulation" does, forcing companies to comply to standards so they can't vendor lock-in their users (this happened with the iphone charging port too, from the apple specific port to usb-c). Guess this type of consumer-benefic changes wouldn't happen in the land of "freedom".

pfannkuchen 10mo ago
A positive effect from regulation does not rebut the general argument against government regulation of industry. The problem with regulation isn’t that there are never any positive effects, of course there are. The problem is it’s impossible to reliably avoid adding substantial friction to life via overly broad regulation that is not applicable but has to be followed anyway, or outdated but still-in-effect regulation that is not applicable but has to be followed anyway, at least. If this only bothered huge companies then I would say cost of doing business, who cares, etc, but it actually affects things like how cities and towns are designed, how expensive housing is, how expensive medical treatment is, etc.
- compootr 10mo ago
  Even though overly broad regulation is a risk, I don't believe little/no regulation is an option either. I don't think the US's consumer protection mechanisms work, and I'm happy to accept the downsides of the EU's systems that come with the upsides of regulation.
- kelnos 10mo ago
  It's unclear exactly what you're arguing, but I think if you are arguing that, because of the unavoidable substantial friction caused by regulation, we shouldn't have any regulation of industry at all... I think it's trivial to find examples where banning all regulation of industry would make the world a much, much worse place. Much worse than the friction.
  - nickpp 10mo ago
    > It's unclear exactly what you're arguing Actually, it's perfectly clear to me. > we shouldn't have any regulation Nope, he's not saying that at all. He's just saying that any regulation (no matter how necessary, well intended or even perfect it is) has a cost. And that cost is accumulating across all regulations. Furthermore, that cost is easily supported by large incumbents (big fans of regulation, btw) but it hurts startups the most. Thus the more regulations a market has, the fewer startups will have. Fewer startups means less competition. Less competition means less innovation, fewer products and higher prices. We can easily see this effect unfolding in the housing, education or health markets. Bottom line is: we must take those second order effects of regulation into consideration when talking about it.

poolnoodle 10mo ago

This is false. Google just reverse-engineered it.

fmajid 10mo ago

I've ditched AirDrop for LocalSend, which is universally cross-platform (iOS, macOS, Linux, Android) and works very well. It's not a complete substitute, it doesn't work in the case of completely casual sharing between devices that are not connected to a shared WiFi network, however.

chasil 10mo ago
I did not know that LocalSend had been ported to iOS and MacOS. I had previously used the built-in webserver for transfers from Android to Apple. I do have much greater luck with LocalSend transfers when I tether them to my own WiFi prior to transfer.
- fmajid 10mo ago
  Yes. The only caveat is that since LocalSend isn't blessed by Apple, it isn't automatically invoked and you have to start it manually to receive.

amaccuish 10mo ago

Next up please do streaming. Chromecast seems so locked down so take AirPlay and make it a standard. Then instead of just opening up NFC, make Google and Apple Wallet support plugins, so users can have one interface with all their cards but not tied to one payment system.

fennecfoxy 10mo ago
>Chromecast seems so locked down so take AirPlay and make it a standard Weird thing to say given that AirPlay is also locked down as well...they're both the same. But I agree with the overall sentiment; a common wireless streaming standard would be amazing. It would mean I can use more devices to throw Samsung DEX at. Hell, if all monitors/TVs/displays came with basic "receive a standard stream from wifi" support that would be so great for consumers, reduces friction so much.

flobosg 10mo ago

Discussion from last week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45994854 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45994854

ptx 10mo ago

So apparently they use Bluetooth to establish the connection and WiFi for the data transfer. This sounds a lot like the "Alternative MAC/PHY" feature which was added in Bluetooth 3.0 and then removed in Bluetooth 5.3 [1] due to low uptake. Why didn't the standard Bluetooth way of doing this gain any traction? What was wrong with it? [1] https://www.bluetooth.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Bluetooth_5.3_Feature_Enhancements_Update.pdf https://www.bluetooth.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Bluetoo...

fennecfoxy 10mo ago

Great! Apple is happy to use the regular Wifi standard, regular Bluetooth standard, USB standard (which they were "planning to anyway" even tho it perfectly lined up with being forced to). They support media standards like mp4, jpeg, png etc. ALL companies should be beholden to common standards of interoperability. It infuriates me that I can plug my Android phone into Windows and it reads it just fine but that plugging it into my Mac does nothing because a bunch of executives are circle jerking each other; this stuff isn't good for US, the consumers. How can we have that cool future where we swipe a media file over towards a person in AR and have it automatically sent to them when we're allowing companies to use the standards they like and dodge ones they don't so that they can create a "platfoooorm" hurr de durr. The "platform" is the entire fucking ecosystem of devices out there.

CarlitosHighway 10mo ago

[flagged]

noname120 10mo ago

Has already been possible for a while: https://github.com/aylishime/WarpShare https://github.com/aylishime/WarpShare The trick is that it doesn’t use AWDL: macOS (but not iOS) also supports AirDrop via local network, although it’s not enabled by default: https://github.com/vinint/MoKee-WarpShare/issues/3#issuecomment-1005877802 https://github.com/vinint/MoKee-WarpShare/issues/3#issuecomm...

closingreunion 10mo ago

This is honestly one of those tiny things that make it really hard to even consider looking outside of the Apple ecosystem. I'm beginning to divest from apple, and this is a big help.

masonwan 10mo ago

Rally can't trust Apple making any standard. They always want to make more money than it is worth, and create demands which eventually causes monopoly and waste.

1vuio0pswjnm7 10mo ago

Perhaps there is another article with a title something like "Evidence that self-regulation works: Apple, Google adopt new WiFi standards"

rob44 10mo ago

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