Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: I made an app people call "Airdrop for Android"

ubidrop.com

121–130 of 150 posts

Re: Show HN: I made an app people call "Airdrop for Android"

#121

Check out LocalSend - it's multi platform. I use this all the time.

Thanks, I've been emailing myself photos in Gmail 5-6 at a time like a caveman for the past several years... any app I tried was a non-cross-platform disaster or cost too much and had major feature bloat. This looks dead simple.

Just plugging tour phone in (eg. with the charging cable) will do the trick, though on Apple-hardware, you'll need to install OpenMTP (https://github.com/ganeshrvel/openmtp) or somesuch.

If you meant more freely aharing than that: apologies, misunderstood. But isn't that the problem Dropbox solved?

Re: Show HN: I made an app people call "Airdrop for Android"

#124
post #68

Doesn't qualify as a "Show HN" - it's already been posted twice in the past few years and there's been no updates for more than a year [0]. Sounds like an attempt to get a few clicks by labelling it as "Show HN". [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html

Previous posts only count if the post has had significant discussion which this one doesn't appear to have had in the last year. If you think there's something else wrong with the submission just email the mods.

I flagged the post which I guess is what flags are for?

(And somehow the author made it to front page but is not here to discuss his app as would be also be expected for a "Show HN" post)

Re: Show HN: I made an app people call "Airdrop for Android"

#125
post #96
post #83

I find it so insane that in 2023 you still have to be on Apple to have the following experience: * I have a file on a device I own. * I wish to send it to another device. * I send it. On Windows, it is still regularly true that the easiest way to send X from one laptop to another one, FIVE FEET AWAY, is via Dropbox or Gmail. This was technically easy twenty years ago. It's a concrete proof that collective action prob…

When using Apple devices I often feel like ordinary people sat down and said "I wish I could do X", and so Apple make that work, and they make it insanely easy to do. AirDrop, syncing stuff, backups, auto adjust volume for headphones, no screen flicker on startup, trackpad that freaking works, etc. When I use Windows, I feel like a committee decided something over a long period of time, and it is as convoluted and pa…

I feel like Apple sat down and said "how can we make sure this NEVER works unless you're only using Apple devices?" and intentionally sabotaged open standards.

The last time I had to do this between two Android devices I just used wifi direct and it worked flawlessly. And yet Apple doesn't support WiFi direct? I can't explain Windows, but the fact that iOS won't interoperate with Android seems like an intentional choice by Apple to make their customers' lives harder.

Re: Show HN: I made an app people call "Airdrop for Android"

#126
post #115
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, I use Bluetooth to send files regularly, and it seems alright. The only reason I do this is because it doesn't really require anything particularly special, though it's not particularly fast. Other than that, there's so many ways to send files that it's hard to pick one as an obvious "best" way to go. However, for something that is reasonably versatile and noob friendly, I pick Wormhole.app. Anything with a…

So your best answer needs an app and a visit to a website...? I rest my case!

Nope! Like I said, I often just use Bluetooth to send files. That requires neither an app nor a visit to a website.

I am really miffed that this is your exact takeaway from what I said. I gave you a way that someone can do this:

* I have a file on a device I own.

* I wish to send it to another device.

* I send it.

Yes, it is in fact just as easy to do this via Wormhole.app as it is Airdrop, except it also works across the Internet when not in close proximity.

The problem here is mainly 1. Wormhole.app is just some website some entity runs, not a standard. We should have a good standard specifically for point-to-point sharing, and 2. It's not integrated into the OS. It's just as easy to pop open Safari and go to Wormhole.app as it is to go to the Share menu and select an Airdrop target, but one is vastly easier to discover than the other.

However, what you said was that you think it's "crazy" you can't just share a file between two devices. You in fact can, easily, without downloading random apps, in numerous ways, from Bluetooth to websites using WebRTC like this one. The Bluetooth one even has pretty good discoverability on Android as I would typically just use the share menu.

I will admit that it is unfortunate that there is no "obvious" solution but that's kind of how the ecosystem works outside of Apple. A lot of things will compete on solving a given problem before we actually get an answer that everyone agrees on. This has its pros and cons, and one of the definite cons is that not everyone is sure what to do. But it's weird to point at this and say "Look! You can't even send files between devices easily!" Yes I can. Lack of a single standard solution does not make it significantly harder, even when doing it between me and some random person that may use a different kind of device than I do.

Re: Show HN: I made an app people call "Airdrop for Android"

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, if you don't mind a question...I need to help a friend back up all the photos off an Android phone and have had a lot of difficulty doing it on my Mac for the reasons you've stated. I do have a Windows notebook at work, are you saying if I plug the Android phone into a ThinkPad, it will just show up like a drive and let me copy photos? It's critical that the photos (thousands of them) keep their original EXIF da…

The best way to transfer files reliably off an Android device has always been an FTP server app on the phone in my experience. MTP can be really buggy with big files and it can be tough to reliably resume interrupted transfers.

Syncthing works for me. I think it's the best way to do it for devices that you own.

Re: Show HN: I made an app people call "Airdrop for Android"

#129

Surprised no-one mentioned https://syncthing.net/ yet. That would seem to be the main competitor for such an app. Still, perhaps there's a market for something a little more user friendly and streamlined. Nice work!

To be fair, the developers of Syncthing have been explicit that Syncthing is not intended to be a file transfer application, and that you should avoid doing so. Syncthing is designed to keep two folders on separate devices in sync at all times. That said, I have used it at times to "transfer" a single file that I copy paste elsewhere and then delete from the sync folder. Sorry Syncthing devs..

I have my Android and laptop running Syncthing with the Android end read write so when I move the files out of the receiving directory on the laptop it is automatically deleted on the Android device. No need for separate copy and delet, just move.

Re: Show HN: I made an app people call "Airdrop for Android"

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also ONLY need Android File Transfer on Macs because Apple is too shit to implement MTP and wants to cripple non-Apple devices. On Windows/Linux/BSD you just plug in your android device and it works. A lot of devices support USB 3 speeds too so transferring is fast and not miserable unlike most iPhones and iPads. They also have a Nearby Share app for Windows that lets you use Nearby Share on Windows. Would be nic…

Hey, if you don't mind a question...I need to help a friend back up all the photos off an Android phone and have had a lot of difficulty doing it on my Mac for the reasons you've stated. I do have a Windows notebook at work, are you saying if I plug the Android phone into a ThinkPad, it will just show up like a drive and let me copy photos? It's critical that the photos (thousands of them) keep their original EXIF da…

If you are comfortable with a terminal, install termux (from fdroid, not play store).

Then you can use scp or rsync as if it was any other computer.

Post reply on HN