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Android and iPhone users can now share files, starting with the Pixel 10

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Re: Android and iPhone users can now share files, starting with the Pixel 10

#571

Post by 1718627440 »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #567
1718627440 wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right. I see a lot of applications putting stuff into /var/run/user/ /, but this is mostly ephemeral runtime data, notably sockets. And of course systemd has service units there, which don't seem temporary at all, but it's systemd, so whatever... . The correct way for what I intend would be /var/lib/user/ /, but yes this does not exist on my host. But I honestly don't see why non-ephemeral per user data shoul…

The average user does not see things like app config files, cache data, etc as their own files. The current /home has so much absolute junk that it's easy to not know where your stuff is. "Real" files to a normal user are .docx, photos, downloaded files, etc. Not auto generated configs. There ideally should be some separation between your actual documents and system utility stuff. I guess this has mostly happen alrea…

> The average user does not see things like app config files, cache data, etc as their own files.

All the more reason to put this stuff into the user directory, so that it is automatically included in backups and syncs done by the unaware user.

> The current /home has so much absolute junk that it's easy to not know where your stuff is.

Not my experience. Application data of application XYZ is either in ~/.xyz or in ~/.{config,local,cache}/xyz, depending on whether the application is FHS compliant or not.

Re: Android and iPhone users can now share files, starting with the Pixel 10

#572

Post by 1718627440 »

kccqzy wrote: post #562
1718627440 wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, but now this information is no longer attached to the original file and you need to manually include it, when distributing the file. Also it is now kind of obvious, that there is not only the file itself in the ZIP file.

It’s not obvious if you are only using macOS, because macOS hides all of these extra files it creates. It’s only obvious if you use Windows or Linux. But of courses the chances of a typical macOS user also using Windows or Linux is very low.

Do packager programs on macOS lie about the packet contents? Otherwise the user will see it when opening the packet. The user needs to be aware of metadata when leaking stuff, e.g. EXIF data for images, non-deleted text in Word, overdrawn stuff in SVG, etc. anyways.

Re: Android and iPhone users can now share files, starting with the Pixel 10

#573

Post by 1718627440 »

pxc wrote: post #563
1718627440 wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right. I see a lot of applications putting stuff into /var/run/user/ /, but this is mostly ephemeral runtime data, notably sockets. And of course systemd has service units there, which don't seem temporary at all, but it's systemd, so whatever... . The correct way for what I intend would be /var/lib/user/ /, but yes this does not exist on my host. But I honestly don't see why non-ephemeral per user data shoul…

I think the systemd units in /run are indeed ephemeral, and indicate units that are active. If they have permanent counterparts (some units, like transient timer units, don't have them), you'll find them under /etc/systemd or /lib/systemd for system units and ~/.local/share/systemd or ~/.config/systemd for user units. > But I honestly don't see why non-ephemeral per user data shouldn't be put into /home I think I agr…

> so users have to go farther out of their way to screw things up, especially depending on your audience.

I think on most desktop distros users only have writing access to their home directory and maybe /tmp.

Re: Android and iPhone users can now share files, starting with the Pixel 10

#574

Post by iggldiggl »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #315
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MTP is really, really bad. I have a better experience managing files on iOS devices using Linux than I do managing files on Android devices using macOS simply because available MTP implementations are so awful. I know that read/write conflict concerns are what got USB Mass Storage mode removed from Android, but surely there's some way to resolve that. Like it wouldn't bother me a bit if Android just locked the device…

Or they could have figured out a new version of MTP that supports basic features like concurrent access and normal metadata. Or they could have gone for SMB/NFS over a virtual network link. Anything but this horrible interface they've doubled down on.

> I know that read/write conflict concerns are what got USB Mass Storage mode removed from Android, but surely there's some way to resolve that.

Depending on whether the respective kernel supported it, you were still unofficially able to switch removable SD cards into mass storage mode (though only with a rooted phone), although somehow, even if I remembered to officially unmount the SD card from Android first, it somehow still often led to mild filesystem corruption (luckily never anything fatal, though) that required regular chkdsk-usage.

> Or they could have figured out a new version of MTP that supports basic features like concurrent access and normal metadata. Or they could have gone for SMB/NFS over a virtual network link.

My current phone no longer supports the above mass storage mode-hack for the removable SD card, which annoyed me enough that I actually wrote my own SMB server app (https://github.com/buttercookie42/SimbaDroid), because all other SMB servers for Android that I'm aware of were either outright broken, unsupported, buggy or fiddly to use. Sadly the only open source Java-based SMB server only supports SMBv1, so you're stuck with that, and you still need root for full comfort, but within those limitations it works quite nicely.

Re: Android and iPhone users can now share files, starting with the Pixel 10

#575

Post by Ghoelian »

1718627440 wrote: post #572
kccqzy wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not obvious if you are only using macOS, because macOS hides all of these extra files it creates. It’s only obvious if you use Windows or Linux. But of courses the chances of a typical macOS user also using Windows or Linux is very low.

Do packager programs on macOS lie about the packet contents? Otherwise the user will see it when opening the packet. The user needs to be aware of metadata when leaking stuff, e.g. EXIF data for images, non-deleted text in Word, overdrawn stuff in SVG, etc. anyways.

By default, the archive just extracts when you try to open it. I don't think MacOS has an archive explorer by default.

Re: Android and iPhone users can now share files, starting with the Pixel 10

#576

Post by kccqzy »

1718627440 wrote: post #572
kccqzy wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not obvious if you are only using macOS, because macOS hides all of these extra files it creates. It’s only obvious if you use Windows or Linux. But of courses the chances of a typical macOS user also using Windows or Linux is very low.

Do packager programs on macOS lie about the packet contents? Otherwise the user will see it when opening the packet. The user needs to be aware of metadata when leaking stuff, e.g. EXIF data for images, non-deleted text in Word, overdrawn stuff in SVG, etc. anyways.

You mean Finder. Well Finder hides all files beginning with a dot by default. And in a Terminal the `ls` command also hides all such files by default, which is a behavior mandated by POSIX.

Re: Android and iPhone users can now share files, starting with the Pixel 10

#577

Post by dataflow »

varenc wrote: post #564
dataflow wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It create an adhoc device-to-device wireless connection and the files are sent that way. So the two phones don't even need to be on wifi or be on the same network at all. Isn't that just Wi-Fi Direct? Which I understand establishes a separate, dedicated temporary network for that task over Wi-Fi, with the two devices being the only ones connected to it? Isn't that still two machines on the same network via Wi-Fi, m…

It's "WiFi-Aware" which seems like a related standard. I think the difference is it handles the discovery and secure connection part, then once established its like WiFi-Direct. Because of this I think it's unlikely. And Apple devices can do this while simultaneously connected to another wifi network. Maybe Android does too. Which would make your concern more possible if it does this too!

Thanks for sending me down this rabbit hole, I wasn't aware of those details. Found a nice reading of this here:

https://www.ditto.com/blog/cross-platform-p2p-wi-fi-how-the-...

Re: Android and iPhone users can now share files, starting with the Pixel 10

#578

Post by 1718627440 »

kccqzy wrote: post #576
1718627440 wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do packager programs on macOS lie about the packet contents? Otherwise the user will see it when opening the packet. The user needs to be aware of metadata when leaking stuff, e.g. EXIF data for images, non-deleted text in Word, overdrawn stuff in SVG, etc. anyways.

You mean Finder. Well Finder hides all files beginning with a dot by default. And in a Terminal the `ls` command also hides all such files by default, which is a behavior mandated by POSIX.

I mean the graphical equivalent of `tar --list --file`. tar doesn't hide files beginning with a dot and neither does my graphical file roller (Engrampa).

Re: Android and iPhone users can now share files, starting with the Pixel 10

#579

Post by magnetowasright »

Gys wrote: post #58
OptionOfT wrote: post #5

The fact that I get excited about this is actually a good representation much vendor lock there is. We used to be able to send files over Bluetooth before the iPhone came out.

> We used to be able to send files over Bluetooth before the iPhone came out. Cross platforms, really? So for example between a Blackberry and a Windows CE phone?

In the year of our lord 2007, my classmates would send (often explicit) videos via bluetooth from their phones (of any manufacturer/model/platform) to teachers' laptops when they were plugged into the projector. They would usually auto-play.

Re: Android and iPhone users can now share files, starting with the Pixel 10

#580

Post by thunfischtoast »

leshenka wrote: post #427
thunfischtoast wrote: post #366

Now fix Direct Share on android, which is a highly broken feature and has been for years.

Why, I think you'd be able to send files between two androids via airdrop implementation.

Direct Share is a "feature" where some contacts are displayed in the first row when you want to share some file. Unforunately, these contacts are not relevant and cannot be edited. They are just some random numbers and whatsapp groups for me. I cannot comprehend how this can be overlooked.
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