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Comment by toddmorey | Hacker News Reader

That’s been my experience, too. I feel like I’m in some cargo cult suggesting it to others.

“We’ll just do these steps and poof it will be on your machine! One second… Hang on… let’s try again…”

9/10 times they haven't set the permissions to receive files through airdrop. It used to be open, but that was a huge security vuln. People could just airdrop whatever picture they wanted to all the iPhones on an airplane for example

There was also a certain amount of regulatory pressure brought to bear; Hong Kongers were using AirDrop to great effect in outwitting the authorities during the 2019-2020 protests

That's 0/10 for me: I know I have the correct permissions set up with my friends (because we can usually Airdrop each other), but sometimes it just spuriously does not work.

One thing I've noticed when AirDropping pictures to my wife is that the recipient needs to have their phone _unlocked_. That was definitely somewhat confusing when I first started using the feature.

Had this exact thing happen tonight. I wanted to airdrop some photos to my MacBook, worked from my partners phone but my phone just wouldn’t send them. My phone and laptop could see each other in airdrop but they refused to send / accept the photos. Ended up texting it to myself in iMessage and opening that on the MacBook.

I call this the "What is a computer?" effect.

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