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The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop

arstechnica.com

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Re: The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop

#131

Post by llm_nerd »

koyote wrote: post #64
llm_nerd wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's resistance was presumably user inertia. Users had billions of cables and accessories for lightning, and Apple saw during a prior transition that people get really pissed off about this sort of change. And let's be real about Samsung et al -- before USB-C, they were using the utter dogshit micro USB connector (funfact -- this terrible connector became prevalent because the EU made a voluntary commitment with m…

> In Apple land, everyone already had a bidirectional, reliable connector Wait, I thought the Apple 30-pin connector was not reversible? USB-C has been out for over a decade now. There was only a small window of about two years where iphones had lightning and other phones did not yet have usb-c.

Samsung released the first USB-C Galaxy S device five years after the iPhone moved to lightning (2012 vs 2017). They had Galaxy A devices on micro USB a year later in 2018.

A couple of devices like the Pixel (4 years after lightning - 2012 vs 2016) got it a bit earlier, but no, it wasn't two years.

The iPhone rocking a massively better connector half a decade earlier than the vast majority of the competition is legitimately a thing.

Re: The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop

#132

Post by llm_nerd »

morshu9001 wrote: post #122
llm_nerd wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users all got to complain that the EU are the meanies responsible for their old wires and chargers and accessory no longer being compatible, but it seems infinitely more likely that Apple was going to adopt USB-C on largely the same schedule even if the EU didn't intercede. To be clear, Apple had already moved their laptops and computers to USB-C -- long in advance of almost any one else -- and had moved their iPad P…

They had Macs on USB-C for like 7 years before the iPhone. It was going to stay like that. Mac on USB-C meant more dongles to sell, iPhone on Lightning meant cable fees and control.

>iPhone on Lightning meant cable fees and control.

Strange, then, that Apple already moved the iPad Pro and iPad Air to USB-C, right? Didn't they get the memo about "cable fees and control"? It's almost like they were incrementally moving all their platforms over.

The cable fees conspiracy has always been a weird one. At the absolute highest, MFi fees were estimated at some $80M per year. Do you know how utterly irrelevant that number is to Apple? It's like 0.02% of their revenue. Far more logically they literally intended it as a quality assurance given that the company was very focused on user satisfaction.

Re: The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop

#134

Post by firefax »

baiac wrote: post #127
firefax wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Left libertarianism is compatible with such views. Basically, libertarian on social issues paired with a preference for a decentralized economy, as opposed to a "tankie" (Stalinist) style centrally planned economy.

What is “left libertarianism” supposed to look like? I find this concept baffling. The end result of libertarianism is nothing like what the left is supposed to support.

>What is “left libertarianism” supposed to look like? I find this concept baffling

Here you go:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-libertarianism

Re: The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop

#135

Post by kcb »

Aloisius wrote: post #128
star-glider wrote: post #5

I'm libertarian, but I have to say watching the EU torment Apple has been delightful and one of the stronger arguments for muscular regulatory action. The USB-C thing just made everything better. It cost Apple basically nothing---maybe a few million/year of profit, which for a company that's worth $3 trillion is nothing, and it made my and many other people's lives quite a bit more convenient. Same with this Airdrop…

> The USB-C thing just made everything better. It cost Apple basically nothing It made all the iPhone docks/speakers/etc. obsolete. The last time that happened, when Apple swapped the old 30 pin connector for lightning, it pissed off a fair number of customers. This time they could blame the EU which was likely a huge plus.

iPhone docks and speakers were already obsolete. They had a moment during the 30-pin era, but its been long since Bluetooth, Carplay took over in any mainstream use.

Re: The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop

#136

Post by JimDabell »

morshu9001 wrote: post #122
llm_nerd wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users all got to complain that the EU are the meanies responsible for their old wires and chargers and accessory no longer being compatible, but it seems infinitely more likely that Apple was going to adopt USB-C on largely the same schedule even if the EU didn't intercede. To be clear, Apple had already moved their laptops and computers to USB-C -- long in advance of almost any one else -- and had moved their iPad P…

They had Macs on USB-C for like 7 years before the iPhone. It was going to stay like that. Mac on USB-C meant more dongles to sell, iPhone on Lightning meant cable fees and control.

You think Apple is going to make the user experience on iPhones – a product that makes them hundreds of billions of dollars a year – to sell more cables‽ How much profit do you think they can possibly make with those cables?

Apple came under fire when they moved from 30-pin connectors to Lightning because people wanted to keep their 30-pin connectors. At the time, Apple said that they wouldn’t make people switch for another decade. They switched to USB-C eleven years later.

Re: The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop

#137

Post by tech234a »

sorenjan wrote: post #51
jeroenhd wrote: post #20

An additional benefit is that the Wi-Fi standard also means that the weird account requirements on Google's Nearby Share can be avoided by independent implementations (i.e. on Windows or Linux or maybe rooted Android, iOS and macOS already have it of course). "Contacts only mode" will always be a challenge, but at least the "I just want to share a file without Google watching me" use case is now resolved by Google im…

Qualcomm has confirmed it's coming to Snapdragon phones soon[0], which maybe hints that it's dependent on the SoC drivers? Samsung uses a mix of Snapdragon and their own Exynos, but I can't see them not releasing it to their Snapdragon phones when others do, and then they pretty much have to release it to their Exynos phones too. [0] https://www.notebookcheck.net/Qualcomm-confirms-Quick-Share-...

An implementation of AWDL on Linux requires a Wi-Fi card that supports "active monitor mode with frame injection". [1] I looked into using it with an Intel Wi-Fi card I had and it appeared mine wasn't supported. I'm guessing the situation is similar on Android in terms of SoC support.

[1]: https://github.com/seemoo-lab/owl?tab=readme-ov-file#require...

Re: The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop

#138

Post by talideon »

itopaloglu83 wrote: post #114
usrnm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple also helped develop USB C more than a decade ago, they still had to be forced to actually use it in their phones. There is no contradiction here

Apple also helped develop ARM, but I believe nobody likes to talk about that. I wonder when the Europe is going to open up European companies like ASML, who are pretty much the de facto monopolies in their field. I believe the Nexperia incident showed that there's also a lot of political and national reasons behind such decisions, not just creating open and fair markets.

That's not right. They were an early investor in ARM Ltd., but they in no way "helped develop ARM". That was all Acorn. ARM Ltd was created because Apple thought ARM was a good fit for the Newton, but didn't want to be beholden to a competitor, which Acorn was.

Re: The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop

#139

Post by intrasight »

GenerWork wrote: post #52
star-glider wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, because I think that, ultimately excessive regulation stifles innovation. I mean, heck, the EU is looking to effectively dismantle GDPR because they're worried that it's going to cause them to miss out on the AI boom. My point was just that Apple is such an outrageously bad actor (and the USB-C and Airdrop rules so beneficial) that these rules were getting even a very pro-market person like me to at least be op…

Your last paragraph doesn't really make you come off as a libertarian at all. If Apple is truly a bad actor, then the libertarian response isn't to have the EU force them to use USB-C on iPhones, it's for people to move away from iPhones to other choices, which means Androids.

Libertarian ideals only work if there is more freedom of choice than we have here.

Re: The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop

#140

Post by est »

tech234a wrote: post #115
madeofpalk wrote: post #27

People keep mentioning Wi-Fi Aware with this, but so far haven't seen anyone actually prove that this is the case. Apple undoubtedly added Wi-Fi Aware support to iOS https://developer.apple.com/documentation/WiFiAware , but its not clear whether iOS actually supports AirDrop over Wi-Fi Aware. Apple clearly hasn't completely dropped AWDL for AirDrop, because you can still AirDrop from iOS 26 to earlier devices. Note t…

I'm fairly sure the article is wrong. For example, someone found strings in Google's implementation that mentioned AWDL: https://social.treehouse.systems/@nicolas17/1155847323390351... Also people have mentioned having success Airdropping to macOS devices, which are not listed as being supported on the Wi-Fi Aware page.

> macOS devices, which are not listed as being supported on the Wi-Fi Aware page.

Not listed, but shipped with some Wifi Aware library

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DeviceToDeviceManager.framework/Plugins/WiFiAwareD2DPlugin.bundle

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