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

ubidrop.com

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

#131

Post by geor9e »

trackofalljades wrote: post #82
goosedragons wrote: post #14

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…

The best way I have found is to create a SMB network folder on your local wifi network (you can do this in Windows and Mac, its usually the default folder share method in the OS, or you can use a NAS) and then use TotalCommander to move the entire Android filesystem (or just the DCIM folder) to that network folder in one go. It took me about an hour to transfer ~128 GB over wifi.

Do not use Android File Transfer (its a horrible app that transfers in a weird slow serial mode over a wired connection). Do not use Pairdrop/snapdrop/etc. Those Airdrop clones do not handle big folders of files well.

If you have Windows available, ignore my advice and do that. It probably isn't as difficult as Mac.

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

#132

Post by garspin »

trackofalljades wrote: post #82
goosedragons wrote: post #14

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…

Try sweech from the playstore.

It starts a web server on the phone on port 4444. Then point a browser at the phone & view/download anything.

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

#133

Post by tonymet »

tentacleuno wrote: post #102
tonymet wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

windows 11 now has nearby devices in the share-sheet . https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/share-things-wit... You're right it's still not yet widely adopted and is less mature than Airdrop. I think so many attacks on CIFS occurred ~ 2000-2015 that local sharing was locked down into oblivion.

> windows 11 now has nearby devices in the share-sheet That sounds great, but after reading this... > you can share over Wi-Fi if the Windows 10/11 PC you’re sharing to is connected to the same private Wi-Fi network. Otherwise, *you can share over Bluetooth.* (emphasis mine) Bluetooth file sharing is one of the most frustrating, painfully slow experiences (on Windows, at least), to date. It frequently randomly discon…

> Is it public?

I couldn’t find docs from MS on the protocol. Without knowing anything I would guess enumeration is mdns based and transfer would use http or cifs.

I’ll look into my firewall and see if any port specs are listed for the service as a starting point on reverse engineering it.

I’m also curious.

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

#134

Post by pvg »

laurent123456 wrote: post #124
pvg wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

That is what flags are for, it's just that the post was a valid Show HN and accusations like 'doing it for clicks' belong in flags and emails to to moderators and not in the thread.

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

#135

Post by austinjp »

pipeline_peak wrote: post #64

Considering how boring and generic phones have become, if you’re really hell bent on airdrop just get an iPhone like the majority of the world. Who in there right mind would pay for this?

The vast majority of the world does not have an iPhone as their smartphone. It's not even close.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01/apple-hits-all-time-...

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

#137

Post by tonymet »

tentacleuno wrote: post #102
tonymet wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

windows 11 now has nearby devices in the share-sheet . https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/share-things-wit... You're right it's still not yet widely adopted and is less mature than Airdrop. I think so many attacks on CIFS occurred ~ 2000-2015 that local sharing was locked down into oblivion.

> windows 11 now has nearby devices in the share-sheet That sounds great, but after reading this... > you can share over Wi-Fi if the Windows 10/11 PC you’re sharing to is connected to the same private Wi-Fi network. Otherwise, *you can share over Bluetooth.* (emphasis mine) Bluetooth file sharing is one of the most frustrating, painfully slow experiences (on Windows, at least), to date. It frequently randomly discon…

I did some digging using TCPView and found

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WS-Discovery Web Services Dynamic Discovery (WS-Discovery

Inside windows this listens on UDP 3702 and is hosted by dasHost.exe / Device Association Services.

Here are microsoft's Developer docs for the WSDAPI https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/win32/blob/docs/desktop-src...

I didn't see any linux or android implementation but it could be out there with some more digging.

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

#138

Post by grecy »

lukeschlather wrote: post #125
grecy wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cho…

> The last time I had to do this between two Android devices I just used wifi direct and it worked flawlessly

And you had to disconnect each device from the wifi they were using, separately.. and you couldn't use the internet during the transfer. That's a no from me.

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

#139

Post by Zambyte »

dash2 wrote: post #119
Zambyte wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This was technically easy twenty years ago. FTP was created 52 years ago. SFTP[0] Has been around for nearly 30. The latter is usually how I transfer files between two machines that I can connect to each other. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSH_File_Transfer_Protocol

How is that gonna work for my non-tech friend's phone and my other non-tech friend's laptop?

mDNS and a GUI

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

#140

Post by fomine3 »

goosedragons wrote: post #14
sorenjan wrote: post #3

Maybe you should update the text on your front page: > Why not use Android file transfer? > Android File Transfer is Google's tool for transferring files from your Android to your desktop. > The tool has not been updated in a long time and feels dated. > Also, it is 2022 and the future is wireless. It's not 2022 anymore, and Google just released an update to their Nearby share called Quick share. Or rather, they're a…

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…

MTP implementation on Windows was clusterfsck as fsck. It was very slow and hangs frequently. Is it okay now?
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