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AirDrop Anywhere – Making it work on Windows

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Re: AirDrop Anywhere – Making it work on Windows

#21

Post by rektide »

tyingq wrote: post #2

"it is unlikely that a non-Apple device has hardware support for adhoc wireless connections between devices. This makes implementation of AirDrop directly on non-Apple devices practically impossible without additional hardware. Instead we’ll implement a proxy..." I get what they mean here, but it has been done. It does require a Wi-Fi card with support for monitor mode and frame injection. OWL did it with an Atheros…

> It does require a Wi-Fi card with support for monitor mode and frame injection. OWL did it with an Atheros AR9280.

I feel like Windows is in part to blame for wifi not evolving. The OS does only the most minimal, basic, simplistic wifi operations, so non-Apple laptops end up with wifi hardware supporting only the most basic, simple wifi capabilities.

I raelly want p2p connectivity to be better in this world, want our amazing digital connectivity to be distributed, not to move beyond relying on top down ISP based networking. Alas, the wifi hardware available on many laptops is just not there.

And even if it were there, it seems unlikely that Windows, Apple, and Google devices are willing to communicate with each other. Everyone has their own proprietary systems (or in Windows case, like the old days where you had to download winsock, it simply has: nothing).

Re: AirDrop Anywhere – Making it work on Windows

#23

Post by nexuist »

rektide wrote: post #20
deanward81 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^^ this! No need to install anything on my Apple devices. Long term plan is to have an instance of AirDrop Anywhere running perpetually on a Raspberry Pi and have a web interface accessible over the LAN for non-Apple devices to connect to when sharing files. That said, this is all just a bit of fun so monetising it isn’t really on the cards anyway :)

It's pretty vulgar that Apple people continue to feel like, well, I have a protocol that works on my devices, so what if the rest of the world can't participate? "Works for me!" has it's merits, oh sure, but some willingness to see the faults & deficiencies would be a nice balance.

Is it any different from Linux users pushing software that depends on Linux syscalls to function and scoffing at Microsoft's attempts to achieve platform parity with WSL? I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone in computing say "just use linux!" instead of attempting to solve whatever problem a user is having with their current hardware and OS. We all want to believe that our personal choices are the best ones anyone can make for themselves.

Re: AirDrop Anywhere – Making it work on Windows

#24

Post by nexuist »

MereInterest wrote: post #18
lostgame wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> But I absolutely do not get the point in reverse engineering a protocol that has been actively closed off. You might be in the wrong forum. ;P I kid obviously - but in all seriousness some people actually do this stuff for fun! And also just to know more about the services we use every day.

The fun and the learning, I definitely understand. For me, though, while I don't mind working around technical limitations to develop something, I get immensely frustrated at working around artificial barriers.

All technical limitations are artificial barriers enforced by humans. Software and hardware doesn't just fall out of the sky.

Re: AirDrop Anywhere – Making it work on Windows

#25

Post by WorldMaker »

rektide wrote: post #21
tyingq wrote: post #2

"it is unlikely that a non-Apple device has hardware support for adhoc wireless connections between devices. This makes implementation of AirDrop directly on non-Apple devices practically impossible without additional hardware. Instead we’ll implement a proxy..." I get what they mean here, but it has been done. It does require a Wi-Fi card with support for monitor mode and frame injection. OWL did it with an Atheros…

> It does require a Wi-Fi card with support for monitor mode and frame injection. OWL did it with an Atheros AR9280. I feel like Windows is in part to blame for wifi not evolving. The OS does only the most minimal, basic, simplistic wifi operations, so non-Apple laptops end up with wifi hardware supporting only the most basic, simple wifi capabilities. I raelly want p2p connectivity to be better in this world, want o…

Windows 10 has Miracast built in and has encouraged wifi drivers to support it. Miracast is built on top of Wifi Direct like most of these other p2p tools. Windows also has a hard to find "AirDrop"-like system, but between having no mobile devices anymore and incompatibility with Google and Apple's proprietary systems no one thinks to use it (because it's mostly just useful between Windows devices and at that point you probably have older tools like file shares that perfectly cromulent rather than worrying about physical proximity).

A lot of these things also don't get explored as much as they should be because the APIs are in the WinRT side of the fence and Project Reunion is only just now opening WinRT to a lot more classic Windows devs.

So Windows doesn't have "nothing" here, it's just trapped between rock (Apple) and hard place (Google).

Re: AirDrop Anywhere – Making it work on Windows

#26

Post by eyesee »

perryizgr8 wrote: post #5

I appreciate the hard work and expertise. But I absolutely do not get the point in reverse engineering a protocol that has been actively closed off. We can all come up with a universal airdrop RFC instead. That effort would be better spent. It's not some magic, it will be a very simple protocol.

It's been a decade since AirDrop was released. It's clearly a useful capability, and I would love to be able to share with any device this way. Nevertheless, no universal protocol has emerged, simple or otherwise, that could take its place.

Re: AirDrop Anywhere – Making it work on Windows

#27

Post by rektide »

nexuist wrote: post #23
rektide wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty vulgar that Apple people continue to feel like, well, I have a protocol that works on my devices, so what if the rest of the world can't participate? "Works for me!" has it's merits, oh sure, but some willingness to see the faults & deficiencies would be a nice balance.

Is it any different from Linux users pushing software that depends on Linux syscalls to function and scoffing at Microsoft's attempts to achieve platform parity with WSL? I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone in computing say "just use linux!" instead of attempting to solve whatever problem a user is having with their current hardware and OS. We all want to believe that our personal choices are the best…

Very little in open source hard-relies on Linux sys-calls. Trying to make this a "both sides" argument is farcical.

Saying that a platform shouldn't lock you in to specific proprietary approaches has a real & substantial non-personal advantage to it that mere personal preference doesn't encompass, as it seeks technical ecosystems capable of organic growth. I don't find your comparison quite valid.

Re: AirDrop Anywhere – Making it work on Windows

#28

Post by rektide »

WorldMaker wrote: post #25
rektide wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It does require a Wi-Fi card with support for monitor mode and frame injection. OWL did it with an Atheros AR9280. I feel like Windows is in part to blame for wifi not evolving. The OS does only the most minimal, basic, simplistic wifi operations, so non-Apple laptops end up with wifi hardware supporting only the most basic, simple wifi capabilities. I raelly want p2p connectivity to be better in this world, want o…

Windows 10 has Miracast built in and has encouraged wifi drivers to support it. Miracast is built on top of Wifi Direct like most of these other p2p tools. Windows also has a hard to find "AirDrop"-like system, but between having no mobile devices anymore and incompatibility with Google and Apple's proprietary systems no one thinks to use it (because it's mostly just useful between Windows devices and at that point y…

Excellent point about Miracast.

It'd be interesting to see some example code that makes use of any platform SDKs windows has available for doing wifi-p2p connectivity with peers. Going from "this is a capability windows uses" to "this is a capability of the platform folks can use" is another jump in meta-level towards encouraging the virtuous hardware/software adoption cycle.

Re: AirDrop Anywhere – Making it work on Windows

#29

Post by foxpurple »

perryizgr8 wrote: post #5

I appreciate the hard work and expertise. But I absolutely do not get the point in reverse engineering a protocol that has been actively closed off. We can all come up with a universal airdrop RFC instead. That effort would be better spent. It's not some magic, it will be a very simple protocol.

We already have a standard file share protocol, Bluetooth. The problem is the UX sucks so much that almost no one uses it.

It’s hard to say exactly why Bluetooth can not fix these issues but perhaps the proprietary nature of AirDrop lets apple innovate without concern for standards or legacy.

Re: AirDrop Anywhere – Making it work on Windows

#30

Post by MereInterest »

nexuist wrote: post #24
MereInterest wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fun and the learning, I definitely understand. For me, though, while I don't mind working around technical limitations to develop something, I get immensely frustrated at working around artificial barriers.

All technical limitations are artificial barriers enforced by humans. Software and hardware doesn't just fall out of the sky.

Technical limitations are the result of humans straining in the direction of producing better things, and needing to make tradeoffs by virtue of not yet being gods. I'd put those as distinct from artificial barriers, which are when a product is intentionally worse than it could be (e.g. detect when running in Wine and refuse to run), and was designed to be so.
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