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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

#61

Post by embedding-shape »

CharlesW wrote: post #13
MBCook wrote: post #3

So they forced Apple to drop an Apple proprietary thing in favor of… a Wi-Fi standard Apple helped develop specifically to replace their proprietary thing. Not quite as strong as the headline makes the case sound.

The EU: Sacrificing constituents' privacy rights with one hand, while courageously fighting for the sacred right to AirDrop with the other.

If a law forced Apple to do good for everyone, not just a small group of people, isn't that a good thing? It wasn't exactly that AirDrop got legislated, but thanks to the DMA, AirDrop (and other things) are within scope and they now have to make things more seamless for everyone. Win-win no?

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

#62

Post by smallmancontrov »

gambiting wrote: post #48
llm_nerd wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Begging? Apple filed a couple of light objections -- basically a "don't regulate us, bro" -- and then moved on. Their resistance was laughably superficial Look, Apple is a predatory, extraordinarily greedy company, but these sorts of "thanks EU!" discussions are a riot. Thanks EU, for making Apple support a clone of an Apple feature that didn't exist until Apple made it, and for "forcing" Apple to transition their li…

>> which they were already almost completely done doing Honest question - why did they stick with lighting on iphones for so long, given that usb-c has been ubiquitus on phones for years before that point. I mean we can sit here and say "duh apple was going to do it anyway" but like.....why didn't they? Why did samsung have usb-c phones long before apple?

Because they were getting a reputation for churning the ports too quickly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyTA33HQZLA&t=19s

and then they went all-USBC on the MBP before the ecosystem was ready, got absolutely slammed for it, and went back (on magsafe). 4 times bitten, once shy. I'm sure the cynical money reason played a role too, of course, but nobody else is mentioning the 4 times bitten so I felt obliged.

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

#63

Post by cowsandmilk »

MBCook wrote: post #3

So they forced Apple to drop an Apple proprietary thing in favor of… a Wi-Fi standard Apple helped develop specifically to replace their proprietary thing. Not quite as strong as the headline makes the case sound.

It is also worth noting that Android wasn’t using the standard as well. If they had, this would have been day 0 interoperability for Android phones. Instead, it is a single phone model released a couple months after iOS 26.

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

#64

Post by koyote »

llm_nerd wrote: post #50
gambiting wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> which they were already almost completely done doing Honest question - why did they stick with lighting on iphones for so long, given that usb-c has been ubiquitus on phones for years before that point. I mean we can sit here and say "duh apple was going to do it anyway" but like.....why didn't they? Why did samsung have usb-c phones long before apple?

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.

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

#65

Post by wat10000 »

star-glider wrote: post #37
tracerbulletx wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're a libertarian but regulatory intervention made everything about the market better and a better world for everyone involved with a relatively small change that was being stubbornly refused by a company for a small marginal benefit to themselves?

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…

“Excessive regulation stifles innovation” is pretty much a tautology. The point of argument is what constitutes “excessive.” Libertarians generally consider almost any amount to be excessive. What you’re describing just sounds like being aware of tradeoffs, which should be true of anyone paying attention.

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

#66

Post by jdiff »

KK7NIL wrote: post #47
giantrobot wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USB-C is a worse mechanical connector for a device plugged in thousands of times over its lifetime. The female port of a USB-C connector has a relatively fragile center blade. Lightning's layout was the opposite which makes it more robust and easier to clean.

> USB-C is a worse mechanical connector for a device plugged in thousands of times over its lifetime. USB-C connectors are usually rated for 10k cycles. Do you have any evidence that lighting connectors are rated for more cycles than that? > The female port of a USB-C connector has a relatively fragile center blade. Lightning's layout was the opposite which makes it more robust and easier to clean. This is very weak…

My Pixel 8 certainly hasn't gone through 10k cycles and it barely holds on to any USB-C connector I put inside it. They all fall out even when laying still on a flat surface.

There's always outliers, of course, but I had this issue with USB Micro-B on at least one other device and never saw it with a Lightning connector.

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

#67

Post by e12e »

ChrisArchitect wrote: post #46

[dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45994854

The better dupe (linked in TFA) - from March:

> Cross-Platform P2P Wi-Fi: How the EU Killed AWDL

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

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43505022

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

#68

Post by nl »

jdiff wrote: post #66
KK7NIL wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> USB-C is a worse mechanical connector for a device plugged in thousands of times over its lifetime. USB-C connectors are usually rated for 10k cycles. Do you have any evidence that lighting connectors are rated for more cycles than that? > The female port of a USB-C connector has a relatively fragile center blade. Lightning's layout was the opposite which makes it more robust and easier to clean. This is very weak…

My Pixel 8 certainly hasn't gone through 10k cycles and it barely holds on to any USB-C connector I put inside it. They all fall out even when laying still on a flat surface. There's always outliers, of course, but I had this issue with USB Micro-B on at least one other device and never saw it with a Lightning connector.

My lightning connector on my iPhone 12 is completely unreliable - I need to twist the phone against the cable to get it to change.

Fortunately MagSafe works fine!

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

#70

Post by madeofpalk »

joejohnson wrote: post #4

I wonder if it's related to Apple's change from AWDL to Wi-Fi Aware, but AirDrop seems much more reliable on iOS 26. I can send to multiple people at once and they often all succeed, but most importantly, if one transfer fails or is cancelled, I can retry and it works. In older versions of iOS, a failed transfer seemed to block all future attempts until the phone was restarted.

Is there any proof that this change actually happened?
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