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Comment by ReverseCold | Hacker News Reader

Still waiting on an AirDrop client for non-Apple products. It works really well and is pretty convenient. Maybe this paper will help.

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It 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?

I 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.

Doesn'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.

Most 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.

This is why AirDrop only works on some newer hardware: It requires Wi-Fi interfaces which can do Ad-Hoc and Infrastructure mode simultaneously.

Not 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.

Yes, 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).

AirDrop 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.

I'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...

Never 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.

It 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.

Little 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.

Zapya 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.

And 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.andr...

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