One of the best perks of owning an Apple device is arguably AirDrop. If you’ve been an Android user all your life and have no idea what AirDrop is, it’s basically a feature that lets Mac and iOS devices share files wirelessly with a minimum of fuss.
You’re probably thinking “Hey, that sounds a lot like Bluetooth.” and you’re right, it’s basically Bluetooth but a hell of a lot better. AirDrop actually uses Bluetooth to create a peer-to-peer Wi-Fi network between devices, and those devices subsequently create a firewall around the connection so that files sent are encrypted. So not only is it more secure than Bluetooth, but it is also so damn seamless, you don’t even need to pair the devices.
So now that you know what AirDrop is, don’t you wish your Android device had something similar? I mean come on, it’s 2020, as the files we share with each other become bigger, the need for something better than Bluetooth is becoming glaringly obvious.
Step in Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi. The three Chinese companies have teamed up to announce what they’ve called the Peer-to-peer Transmission Alliance, which is a new wireless transfer file system. It’s being coined as a fast and seamless way to share files wirelessly between devices, so basically, AirDrop.
This new method of transferring files seamlessly won’t require an internet connection and will utilize Bluetooth for the initial pairing and WiFi P2P to provide an instant, stable high-speed connection between devices. How high-speed is high-speed you ask? Well, users can apparently expect an average transfer speed of 20MB/s. Pretty nifty, huh? No news yet on when exactly this feature will start rolling out on smartphones but it sounds like it’s coming real soon.
While it sucks that only Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi are in on this, a feature like this is something that the Android ecosystem has seriously lacked in recent years and its nice to finally see brands collaborating to make this possible. Hopefully the alliance expands to include Huawei and Samsung as well. With the two big boys on board, Android users can finally enjoy the convenience iOS users have had for the past nine years.
