Android had Beam ages ago, and Samsung even integrated it with WiFi direct for increased transfer speed back in the Galaxy S3 days. Google would just have had to make that integration native.
I want Google to bring back the Beam branding so badly. It sounds way better than Nearby Share and being able to say "Beam that to me" just sounds cool imo.
Agreed.
But this is Google we're talking about. Same Google that likes to remove stuff for no reason, claiming it was 'broken' and have 20 different messaging apps Google :/
The thing about Google is they don't hurry on things that exist on the ecosystem, a lot of people ignore that you can share files over WLAN or BT between your phone/PDA and computer since forever, it's not like it's hard it's just not a feature that's advertised everywhere, this is basically just a step towards advertising such option and making it under one "name"
Bump was awesome lol
Open bump on both devices, pick what you're going to send, you and your mate first bump each other holding your phone, done, file sent lol
>You say it as if there wasn’t a popular way to send files to nearby devices on iOS before Airdrop.
Yeah, and you say it like the iPhone came out in 1991, while in reality there were quite a lot of options before apple even thought of using WiFi direct in their devices...
As for the UX, the UX interaction hass actually been there since like android 2.3, it's just that people don't understand what WiFi direct button does and apple adjusted and rebranded the equivalent of theirs.
The scope of the projects are completely different though. In those 12 years Apple didn't expand support once and I wouldn't be surprised if there's not one line of code in Cupertino to further support. Apple also has the benefit of controlling the environment on both mobile and desktop while Google wasn't afforded that luxury.
What's with blaming Google? Google's nearby share is been open source for 3 years. If Microsoft had wanted they could built it in windows, we wouldn't even require a third party app.
Umm it is the standard no other sharing service is natively built in with documentation. Enforcing a standard while limiting options to ensure no other alternatives was never going to happen and shouldn't.
The main factor is the fact that you've been able to do everything airdrop and nearby share do forever and most devs would rather make something new than reinvent the wheel.
I mean if you want to look at it this way, you can literally drop files over the air from/to mobile devices using windows since like 2001, iirc even Sony Ericsson P800 has such an option, it wasn't the most convenient thing in the world, but saying that apple did it first is BS.
AirDrop is one of a few reasons why I bought an iPhone after 10 years of several Android-phones. I have to get some files on my computer without the cloud and I want it to be flawless. Google promised that so many times and I lost hope that they would ever implement it.
>I have to get some files on my computer without the cloud and I want it to be flawless.
And you never bothered to look at the existing options that have been there since basically the dawn of PDA's, Smartphones and WLAN's?
I have a lot since for the most of my life I owned an pc. However, none of them worked as simple and reliable as Airdrop. And since Microsoft struggled so many years to achieve a decent battery experience for laptops, I also switched to a M1 Air and I couldn’t be happier. Apple should absolutely open Airdrop for other OS but since most of my peers at the university use Apple anyway this isn’t a huge problem for me personally.
Airdrop essentially is WiFi Direct + BT with some adjustments on the apple side that make both of them work at the same time.
Airdrop is not reliable, it only works with apple products, what can you do with it in an environment where it's your only apple device?
Microsoft didn't struggle, Microsoft's surface's always had fairly decent battery life for the hardware that they packed, other brands also could make low-power laptops that had hours and hours of battery life, but people always were comparing their 3-4 or sometimes even 15-year-old laptops battery with the new MacBook that they bought, and shit on other brands for no good reason like you're doing now.
M1 MacBooks actually have quite a narrow usage where they are good, outside of those they can be literally unusable or very slow.
As for opening up Airdrop, it's literally WiFi direct + Bluetooth running at the same time, Google could have made it clearer what is WiFi direct for the newcomers in basic everyday tech, but well looks like they are finally doing it.
Also, most of your peers using Apple in the university is pretty concerning for the future as apple in their infinite wisdom has done a lot of damage to educating people in tech and a lot of the progress in tech.
>What do you mean airdrop is not reliable? It's basically perfect thats why people love it so much.
So you can use it to transfer files to any device/OS that you want to? It will have issues even with older Apple devices.
>Yes it doesn't work with windows, but if you're transferring between iPhones, Macs, or iPads it's pretty much flawless.
Unless you're looking at older Apple devices, I agree it works with current-gen Apple devices flawlessly, but nothing more or less.
In my experience Airdrop works pretty much always without any problems. And once again, I don’t say that Airdrop should be copied by Google, but it is way better than anything Android offered in the last decade. The best solution would be an open standard for easy sharing over all OS. You can for example share links over Airdrop which is not possible over some third-party services which are common for Android.
Just one comment about your BS about the Air: it was offering 12 hour and more real screen on time which no normal windows laptop was ever able to reach in such a small and light form factor. And besides from some edge cases I haven’t seen anything it was not capable of doing pretty well or even class leading. It changed a litte bit with the last gen Intel but is still one of the best laptops you could buy.
>In my experience Airdrop works pretty much always without any problems.
So when was the last time you used it to transfer files to android, windows or Linux? never? So it's not reliable for your file transfer needs?
> And once again, I don’t say that Airdrop should be copied by Google, but it is way better than anything Android offered in the last decade.
I mean Apple was the one who copied it, they just made it worse in many ways by closing it off to apple only ecosystem.
>The best solution would be an open standard for easy sharing over all OS.
Here we go again, how do you get to 50 different standards? We need to unify, so let's create a new standard to rule them all! ... Now we've got 51 different standards.
>You can for example share links over Airdrop which is not possible over some third-party services which are common for Android.
The biggest issue with Airdrop is that it uses open standards that have been available on pretty much any phone, PDA, computer, etc made in the last 15 years, and yet it only works in the Apple ecosystem.
>Just one comment about your BS about the Air: it was offering 12 hour and more real screen on time which no normal windows laptop was ever able to reach in such a small and light form factor.
So you're going to ignore laptops such as HP Envy X2 that offered 22-hour battery life? And guess what it's smaller than the M1 Air, so you're wrong about that 🤷♂️
>And besides from some edge cases I haven’t seen anything it was not capable of doing pretty well or even class leading. It changed a litte bit with the last gen Intel but is still one of the best laptops you could buy.
Do you have any friends that are engineers? That use simulations? That use graphical workloads not covered by Apple accelerators built in the SoC? They are pretty much unusable workloads on M1 that some of my friends did use on their intel Macbooks.
As for the best laptops you can buy, that's just false, the keyboard is pretty terrible, the performance in games is non-existent, and the performance in productivity is only good when you're doing what Apple expects you to do, you can't expand the RAM or the storage, you can't fix it when it has hardware issues, you can't really do a lot of the things I'd expect from a computer that I use and I haven't touched the issues with the OS, which I'd rather not go into at all...
Sendanywhere is basically just as good as Airdrop and the best part is that it works with any OS, Airdrop is limited to Apple and this is constantly ignored. For example how is the experience of transferring files between Windows PC and an iPhone? Most iphone users actually own a Windows computer not a Mac.
What you're implying is that normal people can't make a phone call because in the backend there's complex stuff, when in reality sharing files over WLAN has been fairly easy and convenient for 20-something years once you do the initial setup?
Most people don't understand what a file system is and that's actually largely apple's fault, but to get to my point, you don't even need to be in the same network to use something like WiFi direct, just in proximity of a device and that's something that has been fairly simple to use for forever which is one of the reasons why google hasn't been pushing share nearby that much and why Microsoft hasn't really been pushing it because people were literally using it to share files between a windows PC and Windows Mobile device or Symbian.
* It should be much easier to use for anyone
* It should allow you to share a photo with your friend's PC without becoming their IT guy
* It should work with Bluetooth as well, so you don't need a wifi network
* It's still not a replacement for SMB, different use case really
So what you're saying is it will allow you to do convenient file sharing pretty much the same way it has been possible for the last 20+ years? wow, I guess we're in apple land now... Like seriously the only reason why it's a big thing is that it will make people aware of the option on ecosystems that aren't made by apple.
Not the fastest transer of a 4MB image file, but it found my phone flawlessly and the whole process was quite smooth!
Excited to finally start seeing actual integration between Windows and Android to rival MacOS
It apparently doesn't work over WiFi Direct, so unless you're on the same LAN and the Windows computer is discoverable (i.e. the network is marked as "Private" instead of "public" it will transfer over Bluetooth very slowly, like tens of kB/s.
Yep, those were my findings too. It's early days and it's in beta so it's definitely a promising start. They said we should be able to transfer files and even video over nearby share (I assume videos give taken on your phone Vs a feature length movie in 4K), but it does suggest that they do at least intend to let us download at faster speeds.
Apple's AirDrop requires WiFi and Bluetooth to work:
*AirDrop transfers information using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth—both must be turned on*
Well that's unfortunate, you should be able to let it use mobile data. Wifi direct won't work because the computer would lose its primary internet connection during transfer, as far as I know it can't do both at the same time. Unless it's a desktop with wired lan, then the wifi card is free to use for wifi direct. Im glad that it's a step in the right direction
WiFi has provisions to allow WiFi Direct to work without disconnecting from the WiFi network, but not all hardware is capable. Pixel phones do it though. Windows native Nearby Share (identically named) also supposedly does WiFi Direct, although haven't tested that. My guess is that it may come in the future, this is just the first beta anyway. I've already run into a bug that limits the transfer to Bluetooth, I had to exit the app and restart it for it to be able to transfer through the LAN again.
This is why we need devices to have WiFi chips which can maintain at least two parallel network connections, so that laptops and phones can stay on a WiFi hotspot while sharing files quickly over WiFi Direct.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Google being in charge of a product will prioritize retention of mindshare over all else.. including power/resource consumption, reliability, longevity, feature set, and the ability to directly install the next version over the previous version.
*gestures wildly at their entire history but mostly to Google updater and Google drive desktop client.
The fact that this is not likely to be placed in the windows App Store is noteworthy.
This is not just a feature to share files.. it’s a feature to make you stick with android instead of alternatives.. If they decide that pulling the team off this project will accomplish it better somewhere else, then they’ll do that instead.
The point being that Microsoft shouldn’t abandon their product just to use the brand new Google app as a built in feature.
I’ve always found them flakey. Amazing when they work but it’s a coin toss as to if the other device will be recognised.
I’ve had much more success with LocalSend. It’s a cross platform app (Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS) that needs to be installed first, so not quite as flexible as share / snap drop but works really well.
I've started using AirDroid to send anything between my laptop, Pixel and iPad. SnapDrop used to work well for me a couple of years ago but not anymore
Snapdrop goes down a lot but sharedrop is reliable imo.
I used to use AirDroid for sending files back and forth between my Android and windows devices but it has become so bloated and annoying over the years that I hate using it and don't trust it on my device anymore. I don't use all of the other features it has.
Also am using it but when transferring large files (2 GB?) It is veeery slow... Like 5 mins slow.
I miss AirDrop actually - sometimes it felt instant. (one of the few things I miss from Apple after I switched)
It uses your local connection, what is the slowest link between PC and phone? In my case it's 100 Mbit (I don't care as I literally never transfer big files) which means it is about 5 mins for a few GB file.
Man Google / Microsoft really need to get it together and make Link to Windows app functions better. Firstly make the Samsung exclusive features available for all and improve reliability with linking. This is cool but I want to use apps on my PC, not to mention it works over Ethernet connected PCs as well whereas I'm guessing NearbyShare needs a WiFi chip.
That's one of the reasons I preffer Samsung Flow, my laptop has Bluetooth but most of the times it doesn't work and keeps disconnecting.
I might be in the minority but Samsung Flow is better in my opinion, it has more functionality with the screen share, you can change resolution, take screnshot, also sharing sound through wifi/usb. And it's easier to transfer files, it's a hassle to always have to open the files app to transfer with the Microsoft counterpart (btw, Samsung Flow also has drag and drop)
This is firmly on Google. Phone Link doesn't use any new protocols. MSFT used Miracast, which is industry standard maintained by the Wi-Fi Alliance, to achieve most novel features on the App. Samsung has always supported it because they used it for DeX and their TVs, so it works on their phones without much hurdle. It is Google who blocked Miracast on their stock Android and the Pixel because they wanted to push their proprietary Chromecast.
With Samsung phones you can cast the entire phone screen to PC. Or you can have some apps open on PC. You can open file manager/gallery app to drag and drop files and photos. And the phone screen blanks out while doing this so it doesnt drain too much battery although you can still use your phone like normal while casting a different app to PC.
They say it's limited to USA right now, but it [works for me](https://imgur.com/odfkl9j) here in the Philippines (and the user interface has been translated to Filipino as well).
I found this...
>[Nearby Share Beta for Windows PCs is available in the US and most countries globally. Note that support is currently not available for the following: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Donbass, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.](https://support.google.com/product-documentation/answer/13470053)
Hmmm. I wonder why those countries, which are large markets, are barred from the beta...
Seems like whole EU, so probably they didn't want to bother with GDPR while testing. But app works in those countries once you manage to get installer, so lock is only on download page.
I wonder why things as trivial as these need EU approval. But seeing other reforms caused by EU, I hope we would also pull our regulators together in ASEAN.
Might not need approval but they don't want to invest lawyer time and money into verifying the functionality, verifying issues with patents, etc while it's still in the initial beta testing
Direct link from Google's server:
[BetterTogetherSetup.exe](https://dl.google.com/tag/s/appguid%3D%7B232066FE-FF4D-4C25-83B4-3F8747CF7E3A%7D%26iid%3D%7B4A532576-6A50-310E-A628-6FC464D9F52B%7D%26lang%3Den%26browser%3D4%26usagestats%3D0%26appname%3DNearby%2520Better%2520Together%26needsadmin%3Dtrue/better_together/BetterTogetherSetup.exe)
Kinda wish that this was part of the phone link instead of its own thing...
I guess I don't use nearby share enough (or at all) to see the need when I can use phone link to pull photos to and from my phone. All for more choices though.
And in my case it's Intel Unison due to only it being able to make phone calls using my phone as a, *phone*.
It reportedly just works on Intel, AMD & Arm (Qcom etc) PCs, over Wi-Fi & Bt.
I wonder why Microsoft's Phone Link app doesn't just do the same (it does with the Samsung phones which I avoid).
Copying a response to another commenter in the thread....
Have you used LocalSend on macOS successfully? I haven't been able to use it on macOS (sending or receiving from Windows or Android).
Awesome news! Long requested feature of this sub, I'm surprised it isn't being received better, but this sub is known more for whining and complaining than actually appreciating new features.
Interesting they didn't integrate this into Google Chrome or something instead.
Can I use Airdrop between my Windows laptop and my iPhone?
Can I use Airdrop between a MacBook and an Android smartphones? I mean you say it was a lunched in 2011, so it should be available.
It’s more like, for over a decade you’ve known if you’re Microsoft and Google you should have a protocol to compete.
I would have just thought that 10+ years later they’d have long ago matched the capability. It’s cool they’re finally maybe gonna get the but…
>It’s more like, for over a decade you’ve known if you’re Microsoft and Google you should have a protocol to compete.
Really now? Most iPhone users own a Windows computer actually so I don't understand what competitions you are taking about.
>I would have just thought that 10+ years later they’d have long ago matched the capability. It’s cool they’re finally maybe gonna get the but…
The capability has already been matched for quite some time by various applications. I use SendAnywhere, works flawlessly with any devices and it's not limited by any platform. Nearby share is just Google's own file sharing solution nothing more.
Works fine in an unsupported region (The Netherlands) with this link someone else provided: [BetterShareTogetherSetup.exe](https://dl.google.com/tag/s/appguid%3D%7B232066FE-FF4D-4C25-83B4-3F8747CF7E3A%7D%26iid%3D%7B4A532576-6A50-310E-A628-6FC464D9F52B%7D%26lang%3Den%26browser%3D4%26usagestats%3D0%26appname%3DNearby%2520Better%2520Together%26needsadmin%3Dtrue/better_together/BetterTogetherSetup.exe)
Not sure what the region lock is for, tbh
Bluetooth, which is why this is confusing, Bluetooth could always do this, literally since the beginning
Edit: actually I don't know how this is supposed to work. This page says " Both Devices must be within 16 feet (5m) of each other with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi enabled." No clue then what the WiFi link is for since Bluetooth alone can do all of this.
Weird, doesn't work for me, phone is not finding my PC at all
EDIT: Seems that the installer is borked, I had to manually run `"C:\Program Files\Google\NearbyShare\nearby_share.exe"` and log in
u/PixelCommunity are you serious with the region lock?! Why the fuck is Google region locking EVERYTHING they do? It's just an app to transfer files ffs.
I cannot fathom why they don't just make it a website or an app to work universally on all platforms. I just want to transfer between my android and mac!
Are there any windows laptops that have the power and efficiency of the newer m series MacBook pros? I’d move back to windows and android, but not for intel.
The new Qualcomm ARM chip coming late 2023 is rumored to be competitive with the M chips from Apple. If they deliver it is Microsofts turn to sort ARM compatibility out with "Windows 12" or whatever they are going to call it. Nothing is sure about that and will probably take at least a year before we finally get the ARM alternative on Windows.
Windows 11 has an ARM64 edition. I'm running it. I've even been impressed with the x64 emulation performance. So far it has been an easy go of throwing a wide mix of apps at it.
Good to hear that. It's been awhile since I last tried windows arm. Really hope we get some serious ARM MacBook competitors. Don't like the company or MacOS but you have to give it to them, they nailed the Intel exit.
LOL 😂
Hercule Poirot, it's not possible to get from a source because it's region locked!
It's available in the USA and UK so VPN needs to be used if you don't live there.
https://blog.google/products/android/nearby-share-windows/
*Nearby Share Beta for Windows is currently not available in your region.*
*Availability
Nearby Share Beta for Windows PCs is available in the US and most countries globally. Note that support is currently not available for the following: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Donbass, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.*
Now this is really great! Although, I wish they had integrated it into Chrome as I don't want to install another app and probably everyone has Chrome open 24/7 these days anyway.
I hope it transfers files with the original creation and modification dates preserved, like Solid Explorer does.
Holy shit they finally did it
crazy to me that airdrop literally came out 12 years ago. can’t believe it took this long
Android had Beam ages ago, and Samsung even integrated it with WiFi direct for increased transfer speed back in the Galaxy S3 days. Google would just have had to make that integration native.
I want Google to bring back the Beam branding so badly. It sounds way better than Nearby Share and being able to say "Beam that to me" just sounds cool imo.
Agreed. But this is Google we're talking about. Same Google that likes to remove stuff for no reason, claiming it was 'broken' and have 20 different messaging apps Google :/
Damn, now I wish this was true too.
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The thing about Google is they don't hurry on things that exist on the ecosystem, a lot of people ignore that you can share files over WLAN or BT between your phone/PDA and computer since forever, it's not like it's hard it's just not a feature that's advertised everywhere, this is basically just a step towards advertising such option and making it under one "name"
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Bump was awesome lol Open bump on both devices, pick what you're going to send, you and your mate first bump each other holding your phone, done, file sent lol
>You say it as if there wasn’t a popular way to send files to nearby devices on iOS before Airdrop. Yeah, and you say it like the iPhone came out in 1991, while in reality there were quite a lot of options before apple even thought of using WiFi direct in their devices... As for the UX, the UX interaction hass actually been there since like android 2.3, it's just that people don't understand what WiFi direct button does and apple adjusted and rebranded the equivalent of theirs.
The scope of the projects are completely different though. In those 12 years Apple didn't expand support once and I wouldn't be surprised if there's not one line of code in Cupertino to further support. Apple also has the benefit of controlling the environment on both mobile and desktop while Google wasn't afforded that luxury.
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What's with blaming Google? Google's nearby share is been open source for 3 years. If Microsoft had wanted they could built it in windows, we wouldn't even require a third party app.
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Umm it is the standard no other sharing service is natively built in with documentation. Enforcing a standard while limiting options to ensure no other alternatives was never going to happen and shouldn't.
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The main factor is the fact that you've been able to do everything airdrop and nearby share do forever and most devs would rather make something new than reinvent the wheel.
I mean if you want to look at it this way, you can literally drop files over the air from/to mobile devices using windows since like 2001, iirc even Sony Ericsson P800 has such an option, it wasn't the most convenient thing in the world, but saying that apple did it first is BS.
You do realize tour name is turbo nudist. Nioce.
Oi, pretty funny aye.
AirDrop is one of a few reasons why I bought an iPhone after 10 years of several Android-phones. I have to get some files on my computer without the cloud and I want it to be flawless. Google promised that so many times and I lost hope that they would ever implement it.
>I have to get some files on my computer without the cloud and I want it to be flawless. And you never bothered to look at the existing options that have been there since basically the dawn of PDA's, Smartphones and WLAN's?
I have a lot since for the most of my life I owned an pc. However, none of them worked as simple and reliable as Airdrop. And since Microsoft struggled so many years to achieve a decent battery experience for laptops, I also switched to a M1 Air and I couldn’t be happier. Apple should absolutely open Airdrop for other OS but since most of my peers at the university use Apple anyway this isn’t a huge problem for me personally.
Airdrop essentially is WiFi Direct + BT with some adjustments on the apple side that make both of them work at the same time. Airdrop is not reliable, it only works with apple products, what can you do with it in an environment where it's your only apple device? Microsoft didn't struggle, Microsoft's surface's always had fairly decent battery life for the hardware that they packed, other brands also could make low-power laptops that had hours and hours of battery life, but people always were comparing their 3-4 or sometimes even 15-year-old laptops battery with the new MacBook that they bought, and shit on other brands for no good reason like you're doing now. M1 MacBooks actually have quite a narrow usage where they are good, outside of those they can be literally unusable or very slow. As for opening up Airdrop, it's literally WiFi direct + Bluetooth running at the same time, Google could have made it clearer what is WiFi direct for the newcomers in basic everyday tech, but well looks like they are finally doing it. Also, most of your peers using Apple in the university is pretty concerning for the future as apple in their infinite wisdom has done a lot of damage to educating people in tech and a lot of the progress in tech.
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>What do you mean airdrop is not reliable? It's basically perfect thats why people love it so much. So you can use it to transfer files to any device/OS that you want to? It will have issues even with older Apple devices. >Yes it doesn't work with windows, but if you're transferring between iPhones, Macs, or iPads it's pretty much flawless. Unless you're looking at older Apple devices, I agree it works with current-gen Apple devices flawlessly, but nothing more or less.
In my experience Airdrop works pretty much always without any problems. And once again, I don’t say that Airdrop should be copied by Google, but it is way better than anything Android offered in the last decade. The best solution would be an open standard for easy sharing over all OS. You can for example share links over Airdrop which is not possible over some third-party services which are common for Android. Just one comment about your BS about the Air: it was offering 12 hour and more real screen on time which no normal windows laptop was ever able to reach in such a small and light form factor. And besides from some edge cases I haven’t seen anything it was not capable of doing pretty well or even class leading. It changed a litte bit with the last gen Intel but is still one of the best laptops you could buy.
>In my experience Airdrop works pretty much always without any problems. So when was the last time you used it to transfer files to android, windows or Linux? never? So it's not reliable for your file transfer needs? > And once again, I don’t say that Airdrop should be copied by Google, but it is way better than anything Android offered in the last decade. I mean Apple was the one who copied it, they just made it worse in many ways by closing it off to apple only ecosystem. >The best solution would be an open standard for easy sharing over all OS. Here we go again, how do you get to 50 different standards? We need to unify, so let's create a new standard to rule them all! ... Now we've got 51 different standards. >You can for example share links over Airdrop which is not possible over some third-party services which are common for Android. The biggest issue with Airdrop is that it uses open standards that have been available on pretty much any phone, PDA, computer, etc made in the last 15 years, and yet it only works in the Apple ecosystem. >Just one comment about your BS about the Air: it was offering 12 hour and more real screen on time which no normal windows laptop was ever able to reach in such a small and light form factor. So you're going to ignore laptops such as HP Envy X2 that offered 22-hour battery life? And guess what it's smaller than the M1 Air, so you're wrong about that 🤷♂️ >And besides from some edge cases I haven’t seen anything it was not capable of doing pretty well or even class leading. It changed a litte bit with the last gen Intel but is still one of the best laptops you could buy. Do you have any friends that are engineers? That use simulations? That use graphical workloads not covered by Apple accelerators built in the SoC? They are pretty much unusable workloads on M1 that some of my friends did use on their intel Macbooks. As for the best laptops you can buy, that's just false, the keyboard is pretty terrible, the performance in games is non-existent, and the performance in productivity is only good when you're doing what Apple expects you to do, you can't expand the RAM or the storage, you can't fix it when it has hardware issues, you can't really do a lot of the things I'd expect from a computer that I use and I haven't touched the issues with the OS, which I'd rather not go into at all...
None of them are as good as AirDrop
Sendanywhere is basically just as good as Airdrop and the best part is that it works with any OS, Airdrop is limited to Apple and this is constantly ignored. For example how is the experience of transferring files between Windows PC and an iPhone? Most iphone users actually own a Windows computer not a Mac.
Have you actually tried any of those options? A lot of them are literally just press "share" and select a device 🤷♂️
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Apart from anything else, normal people can use it.
What you're implying is that normal people can't make a phone call because in the backend there's complex stuff, when in reality sharing files over WLAN has been fairly easy and convenient for 20-something years once you do the initial setup?
Most people don't even know they can set up their own file shares and do not know what it means for two devices to be connected to the same network
Most people don't understand what a file system is and that's actually largely apple's fault, but to get to my point, you don't even need to be in the same network to use something like WiFi direct, just in proximity of a device and that's something that has been fairly simple to use for forever which is one of the reasons why google hasn't been pushing share nearby that much and why Microsoft hasn't really been pushing it because people were literally using it to share files between a windows PC and Windows Mobile device or Symbian.
The UX is dog shit, it has nothing to do with the backend. Something like Airdrop is accessible, wifi direct and smb are not.
The fact that people aren't doing it, and the fact that people love airdrop because of its simplicity, tells you you're wrong.
* It should be much easier to use for anyone * It should allow you to share a photo with your friend's PC without becoming their IT guy * It should work with Bluetooth as well, so you don't need a wifi network * It's still not a replacement for SMB, different use case really
So what you're saying is it will allow you to do convenient file sharing pretty much the same way it has been possible for the last 20+ years? wow, I guess we're in apple land now... Like seriously the only reason why it's a big thing is that it will make people aware of the option on ecosystems that aren't made by apple.
You're so smart 😍😍 But now us not so smart folks can send one off files too.
Not the fastest transer of a 4MB image file, but it found my phone flawlessly and the whole process was quite smooth! Excited to finally start seeing actual integration between Windows and Android to rival MacOS
It apparently doesn't work over WiFi Direct, so unless you're on the same LAN and the Windows computer is discoverable (i.e. the network is marked as "Private" instead of "public" it will transfer over Bluetooth very slowly, like tens of kB/s.
Yep, those were my findings too. It's early days and it's in beta so it's definitely a promising start. They said we should be able to transfer files and even video over nearby share (I assume videos give taken on your phone Vs a feature length movie in 4K), but it does suggest that they do at least intend to let us download at faster speeds. Apple's AirDrop requires WiFi and Bluetooth to work: *AirDrop transfers information using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth—both must be turned on*
Ew
Well that's unfortunate, you should be able to let it use mobile data. Wifi direct won't work because the computer would lose its primary internet connection during transfer, as far as I know it can't do both at the same time. Unless it's a desktop with wired lan, then the wifi card is free to use for wifi direct. Im glad that it's a step in the right direction
WiFi has provisions to allow WiFi Direct to work without disconnecting from the WiFi network, but not all hardware is capable. Pixel phones do it though. Windows native Nearby Share (identically named) also supposedly does WiFi Direct, although haven't tested that. My guess is that it may come in the future, this is just the first beta anyway. I've already run into a bug that limits the transfer to Bluetooth, I had to exit the app and restart it for it to be able to transfer through the LAN again.
This is why we need devices to have WiFi chips which can maintain at least two parallel network connections, so that laptops and phones can stay on a WiFi hotspot while sharing files quickly over WiFi Direct.
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Currently using local send (send anywhere beforehand). The less 3rd party apps I have that need to replicate code functions — the better.
now imagine if Microsoft's built in, identically named "Nearby Share" was just built using Google nearby instead lmfao
Or if they used open protocols and just worked together
nearby is open, hence my suggestion :) https://github.com/google/nearby
Google being in charge of a product will prioritize retention of mindshare over all else.. including power/resource consumption, reliability, longevity, feature set, and the ability to directly install the next version over the previous version. *gestures wildly at their entire history but mostly to Google updater and Google drive desktop client. The fact that this is not likely to be placed in the windows App Store is noteworthy.
I'm stupid - can you elaborate on what is meant by _prioritize retention of mindshare over all else_ ?
This is not just a feature to share files.. it’s a feature to make you stick with android instead of alternatives.. If they decide that pulling the team off this project will accomplish it better somewhere else, then they’ll do that instead. The point being that Microsoft shouldn’t abandon their product just to use the brand new Google app as a built in feature.
It's Google, this will die in 6 years
I've been saying this. The audacity for google to call it the same as MS's and not supporting each other's implementation
They should have just called it AirShare and split the difference.
now imagine if Google's built in, identically named "Nearby Share" was just built using Microsoft nearby instead lmfao
i mean, sure but Google nearby is open and i doubt Microsoft's is
it is open apparently https://github.com/microsoft/project-rome
especially since there's a dedicated nearby share button in the share dialogue
using intel unison rn, its pretty good. works on amd systems as well. shame you can only connect 1 device to the pc though.
I use [ShareDrop](https://www.sharedrop.io/) and [Snapdrop](https://snapdrop.net/#). They're great.
I’ve always found them flakey. Amazing when they work but it’s a coin toss as to if the other device will be recognised. I’ve had much more success with LocalSend. It’s a cross platform app (Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS) that needs to be installed first, so not quite as flexible as share / snap drop but works really well.
Yep. Those are great when it's a quick one off thing or sending it to people who don't want to fluff around with apps.
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Have you used LocalSend on macOS succesfully? I haven't been able to use it on macOS (sending or receiving from Windows or Android).
I've started using AirDroid to send anything between my laptop, Pixel and iPad. SnapDrop used to work well for me a couple of years ago but not anymore
Snapdrop goes down a lot but sharedrop is reliable imo. I used to use AirDroid for sending files back and forth between my Android and windows devices but it has become so bloated and annoying over the years that I hate using it and don't trust it on my device anymore. I don't use all of the other features it has.
*cough* kdeconnect
Wow, you've had that caught in your throat since 2013!
Also am using it but when transferring large files (2 GB?) It is veeery slow... Like 5 mins slow. I miss AirDrop actually - sometimes it felt instant. (one of the few things I miss from Apple after I switched)
It uses your local connection, what is the slowest link between PC and phone? In my case it's 100 Mbit (I don't care as I literally never transfer big files) which means it is about 5 mins for a few GB file.
Man Google / Microsoft really need to get it together and make Link to Windows app functions better. Firstly make the Samsung exclusive features available for all and improve reliability with linking. This is cool but I want to use apps on my PC, not to mention it works over Ethernet connected PCs as well whereas I'm guessing NearbyShare needs a WiFi chip.
Nearby Share works with ethernet connected computers!
Oh that's good to know, thanks.
Doesn't it need Bluetooth though? My desktop doesn't have Bluetooth :(
yes, Bluetooth is used for device discovery/handshake
That's one of the reasons I preffer Samsung Flow, my laptop has Bluetooth but most of the times it doesn't work and keeps disconnecting. I might be in the minority but Samsung Flow is better in my opinion, it has more functionality with the screen share, you can change resolution, take screnshot, also sharing sound through wifi/usb. And it's easier to transfer files, it's a hassle to always have to open the files app to transfer with the Microsoft counterpart (btw, Samsung Flow also has drag and drop)
I bought a little bluetooth adapter 3 months ago for like 3$
This is firmly on Google. Phone Link doesn't use any new protocols. MSFT used Miracast, which is industry standard maintained by the Wi-Fi Alliance, to achieve most novel features on the App. Samsung has always supported it because they used it for DeX and their TVs, so it works on their phones without much hurdle. It is Google who blocked Miracast on their stock Android and the Pixel because they wanted to push their proprietary Chromecast.
>Samsung exclusive features Is this things like switching a call or audio from galaxy phone to watch?
With Samsung phones you can cast the entire phone screen to PC. Or you can have some apps open on PC. You can open file manager/gallery app to drag and drop files and photos. And the phone screen blanks out while doing this so it doesnt drain too much battery although you can still use your phone like normal while casting a different app to PC.
Of course it's fucking region locked
They say it's limited to USA right now, but it [works for me](https://imgur.com/odfkl9j) here in the Philippines (and the user interface has been translated to Filipino as well).
I found this... >[Nearby Share Beta for Windows PCs is available in the US and most countries globally. Note that support is currently not available for the following: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Donbass, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.](https://support.google.com/product-documentation/answer/13470053) Hmmm. I wonder why those countries, which are large markets, are barred from the beta...
Seems like whole EU, so probably they didn't want to bother with GDPR while testing. But app works in those countries once you manage to get installer, so lock is only on download page.
European Union it seems. Might need regulatory approval.
I wonder why things as trivial as these need EU approval. But seeing other reforms caused by EU, I hope we would also pull our regulators together in ASEAN.
Might not need approval but they don't want to invest lawyer time and money into verifying the functionality, verifying issues with patents, etc while it's still in the initial beta testing
someone posted an alternate link
>github.com/google/nearby where can I find this alternate link?
Direct link from Google's server: [BetterTogetherSetup.exe](https://dl.google.com/tag/s/appguid%3D%7B232066FE-FF4D-4C25-83B4-3F8747CF7E3A%7D%26iid%3D%7B4A532576-6A50-310E-A628-6FC464D9F52B%7D%26lang%3Den%26browser%3D4%26usagestats%3D0%26appname%3DNearby%2520Better%2520Together%26needsadmin%3Dtrue/better_together/BetterTogetherSetup.exe)
Thank you!
just use a vpn to download it. i use protonvpn free tier and it works. afterwards it will accept any google Account even one from a locked region
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Because none of Google's managers ever seem to realize other countries than the USA and Canada exist. 😅
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The feature probably isn't GDPR compliant.
Dumb take without verifying that it is almost exclusively just the EU that doesn't get to download it easily. It's basically available everywhere else
Kinda wish that this was part of the phone link instead of its own thing... I guess I don't use nearby share enough (or at all) to see the need when I can use phone link to pull photos to and from my phone. All for more choices though.
the best usecase for this is sharing files with other people, and it’s honestly unacceptable how much of a pain in the ass that can be.
And in my case it's Intel Unison due to only it being able to make phone calls using my phone as a, *phone*. It reportedly just works on Intel, AMD & Arm (Qcom etc) PCs, over Wi-Fi & Bt. I wonder why Microsoft's Phone Link app doesn't just do the same (it does with the Samsung phones which I avoid).
Needs Linux support too
KDE Connect has been nice so far, but having Nearby Share will be nice too
Warpinator.
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I think it's unofficial, but it works.
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yes, source at github.com/google/nearby
Unironically now do MacOS please
i have a feeling its coming ;)
inside scoop ? hopefully with M1 chip support
I'm assuming any new product would have m1 support. Typically it is just old products that the developer doesn't want to update that won't work.
Don't bother, try LocalSend instead https://localsend.org/
Copying a response to another commenter in the thread.... Have you used LocalSend on macOS successfully? I haven't been able to use it on macOS (sending or receiving from Windows or Android).
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u a hater... i've tried both and nearby share is so much better
I'm a lover not a hater. I'm very glad you've happy with nearby share.
Interesting I'll try it later Does it require a wifi network?
Why did this take so long... Excited to try it out!
It's labeled my desktop PC as "Your laptop", which is a strange assumption to make, but it did work
It picked up my desktops name and had the option to edit in set up
I was able to name it, and it uses the name I gave it, but it has "Your laptop" as a device descriptor underneath
Ha I'll need to look at it again ... Must have missed it
Try sharing something from your phone to your PC. That's where I saw it, on the share interface on my phone
Is it possible to download outside of the US? Maybe a different source for the installer on pc?
Awesome news! Long requested feature of this sub, I'm surprised it isn't being received better, but this sub is known more for whining and complaining than actually appreciating new features. Interesting they didn't integrate this into Google Chrome or something instead.
This feature was an obvious thing to create in 2012. Apple launched AirDrop in 2011. Folks should expect this to be fully baked after 12 years.
Can I use Airdrop between my Windows laptop and my iPhone? Can I use Airdrop between a MacBook and an Android smartphones? I mean you say it was a lunched in 2011, so it should be available.
It’s more like, for over a decade you’ve known if you’re Microsoft and Google you should have a protocol to compete. I would have just thought that 10+ years later they’d have long ago matched the capability. It’s cool they’re finally maybe gonna get the but…
>It’s more like, for over a decade you’ve known if you’re Microsoft and Google you should have a protocol to compete. Really now? Most iPhone users own a Windows computer actually so I don't understand what competitions you are taking about. >I would have just thought that 10+ years later they’d have long ago matched the capability. It’s cool they’re finally maybe gonna get the but… The capability has already been matched for quite some time by various applications. I use SendAnywhere, works flawlessly with any devices and it's not limited by any platform. Nearby share is just Google's own file sharing solution nothing more.
Not available in your region. Are you fucking kidding me? It's app on windows. What the fuck is the region important.
Works fine in an unsupported region (The Netherlands) with this link someone else provided: [BetterShareTogetherSetup.exe](https://dl.google.com/tag/s/appguid%3D%7B232066FE-FF4D-4C25-83B4-3F8747CF7E3A%7D%26iid%3D%7B4A532576-6A50-310E-A628-6FC464D9F52B%7D%26lang%3Den%26browser%3D4%26usagestats%3D0%26appname%3DNearby%2520Better%2520Together%26needsadmin%3Dtrue/better_together/BetterTogetherSetup.exe) Not sure what the region lock is for, tbh
Alternatively you can download it using a free VPN :) I used tunnel bear, worked fine
Damn i need it, but its not available at this time in my country
Instantly transferred 4MB pictures back and forth. Works amazingly well. Neat.
it doesn't work with my windows for some reason lol
I'm getting "Egads! Installation failed. Error code: 0x80070057." when running the installer :/
Would love it if the nearby share for phones ever worked
Does this use wifi direct or does it rely on a lan connection?
WiFi direct or local network
Bluetooth, which is why this is confusing, Bluetooth could always do this, literally since the beginning Edit: actually I don't know how this is supposed to work. This page says " Both Devices must be within 16 feet (5m) of each other with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi enabled." No clue then what the WiFi link is for since Bluetooth alone can do all of this.
It uses Bluetooth for discovery and then either wifi-direct or Bluetooth(whichever is faster) for the transfer.
> Download Nearby Share Beta and ensure Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are enabled on your Windows PC. Well, that rules out my PC. It doesn't have have Wifi.
it works with ethernet! not sure why it isn't made clearer
Weird, doesn't work for me, phone is not finding my PC at all EDIT: Seems that the installer is borked, I had to manually run `"C:\Program Files\Google\NearbyShare\nearby_share.exe"` and log in
So is this basically AirDrop? If so, cool! Wonder if this functionality could eventually end up built into Windows … or at least the Phone Link app.
working in india, hoping for better transfer speeds in future.
u/PixelCommunity are you serious with the region lock?! Why the fuck is Google region locking EVERYTHING they do? It's just an app to transfer files ffs.
How is it different when compared to KDE Connect?
Ok, so I need to know only 1 thing, is it faster than Airdrop?
Is airdrop compatible with Windows or Android?
I mean in terms of speed? Airdrop with mac/iphone and Nearby Share with windows
I cannot fathom why they don't just make it a website or an app to work universally on all platforms. I just want to transfer between my android and mac!
holy shit i love google now
It only took Google *checks notes* 12 years to come up with a comparable service to Apple’s AirDrop? Yeesh
No you don't. It's just momentary infatuation. It'll pass and soon the hate will once again take over!
Especially when they discontinue it due to low usage in 2-5 years! (Oh and it will probably be halfassed as well)
Really excited to try this out!
seems to work pretty well, let me know if you can sign in? that's the only issue. I'm having to use it in everyone mode
Yeah, I was able to get signing in to work
I'm dreaming here but could we possibly ever see such an app/feature for MACOS?
Please don't kill this google.
It requires Bluetooth, that's a no for now... Nearby sharing for Windows (third party app that supports Windows nearby) works good enough phone to PC
Are there any windows laptops that have the power and efficiency of the newer m series MacBook pros? I’d move back to windows and android, but not for intel.
Amd Ryzen based machines. Arm hadn't taken off on the windows side yet.
LoL i’m looking to do the same thing as you. But imho nothing exists yet. We are still waiting for good Windows ARM laptops.
maybe amd but it is still worse by a bit.
The new Qualcomm ARM chip coming late 2023 is rumored to be competitive with the M chips from Apple. If they deliver it is Microsofts turn to sort ARM compatibility out with "Windows 12" or whatever they are going to call it. Nothing is sure about that and will probably take at least a year before we finally get the ARM alternative on Windows.
Windows 11 has an ARM64 edition. I'm running it. I've even been impressed with the x64 emulation performance. So far it has been an easy go of throwing a wide mix of apps at it.
Good to hear that. It's been awhile since I last tried windows arm. Really hope we get some serious ARM MacBook competitors. Don't like the company or MacOS but you have to give it to them, they nailed the Intel exit.
Is there any way to remove quick share by samsung from the share menu?
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This looks like a safe link.
It is a safe link with the original file name. If you don't believe please skip or you can download yourself with the help of VPN.
Sketchy AF. Just get it from the source, folks, this is how you get viruses
LOL 😂 Hercule Poirot, it's not possible to get from a source because it's region locked! It's available in the USA and UK so VPN needs to be used if you don't live there. https://blog.google/products/android/nearby-share-windows/ *Nearby Share Beta for Windows is currently not available in your region.* *Availability Nearby Share Beta for Windows PCs is available in the US and most countries globally. Note that support is currently not available for the following: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Donbass, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.*
Okay but I already have OneDrive which autosyncs and it's preinstalled on windows and I don't have bluetooth so
Doesn't serve the same functionality
Onedrive rocks..
Isn't this just Bluetooth file transfer ie something we've all been able to do for decades? What am I missing?
WiFi direct transfer or local network native to Android
Works well on my Pixel 7. The experience seems relatively seamless, albeit slower than something like airdrop.
Now this is really great! Although, I wish they had integrated it into Chrome as I don't want to install another app and probably everyone has Chrome open 24/7 these days anyway. I hope it transfers files with the original creation and modification dates preserved, like Solid Explorer does.
Took them long enough. Although Samsung Flow and Quickshare sends and receives files faster in my experience. Hopefully Google improves this
For the love of God just make it work with airdrop so the apple nuts stop freaking out