While we often rip them off for their ridiculous prices and reluctance to conform to industry standards, you can’t argue that Apple hasn’t created many an innovation in the market that gets copied by others. From touch screen phones, app stores, Ipads and now AirPods, the company continues to trailblaze their way to new market trends that we never knew existed.
Android is about to copy another popular reason to own Apple products with the company releasing a video (shown by XDA Developers) that showcases a new feature called Nearby Sharing that mimics apple’s AirDrop feature.
Android has experimented with NFC features before with little success and although Google’s Files app includes similar functionality, because it’s not embedded at an OS level, it hasn’t worked as seamlessly as hoped. Hopefully, this new feature makes it a lot easier for Android users to share files with each other. The feature is designed to work best when two devices are within one foot of each other, but there are also options to restrict a device’s visibility to prevent others from access the shared files too.
Samsung is reportedly also working on its file-sharing standard called Quick Share, so it appears as if this is the next end that is bound to be copied by many other tech companies. Given the more diverse hardware that Android work on though it might be difficult for them to make this technology work as effortlessly as Apple’s, but if they can get it right, it represents yet another reason to not get an Apple device.
Last Updated: January 28, 2020
