As of now it's not even the pixel walled garden, it's the pixel 9&10 walled garden. Who knows, maybe by the time they'll bring it to older pixels they'll also bring it to other androids
The irony of people continuing to bitch about Google in this sub not realizing that features that get rolled out to all of Android typically go to Pixels first.
Google segregates features between Pixel phones themselves. The newest ones get exclusive features for around a year, which then trickle down to the older Pixels over time, sometimes never.
I'd be fine with this if Quick Share were a proprietary Pixel implementation.
It's not, it's partially developed by Samsung, and there's no reason for Google to gatekeep an enhancement to a feature they initially rolled out via a Play Services update to most devices already.
Apple has had way too many close calls with EU regulators to be doing anything like that at the moment or in the foreseeable future. Google has been slapped with billion dollar fines for things Apple somehow got away with; I see that as Google paying the troll under the bridge for doing all sorts of things like reverse engineering iMessage. Google should just be baiting Apple at this point.
Yeah. Pixel 10 got it in late November. Nothing gets released in December. Announced for the 9 in January. Why do you think it would take a year to roll out to the 8?
I mean the 10 series literally just got it not even a couple months ago, I'm sure we'll get it soon this year. They always trickle features down the most recent models.
Apple's Wireless Direct Link (AWDL) has powered AirDrop since its inception. It allows for low-latency handshaking and file transfer. The handshaking is what apple has kept proprietary.
In 2025, the EU required phones to allow for effective nearby, direct, wireless file transfer. Apple is technically compliant because they opened up obscure APIs for WiFi Aware (aka Neighbor Awareness Networking, NAN), but these are not widely available. NAN allows for handshakes and file transfer.
In 2018-2019, OWL released the tool you found, which is AWDL. It only works on specific hardware and is not the AWDL clone you would hope it to be.
You can compare NAN to RCS. Apple did not open up iMessage nor Airdrop, they adopted RCS and NAN. It's just that the base implementation of NAN looks like feature-complete AirDrop. Handshake + transfer. With RCS, Apple did not use Google's E2EE proposal. In both cases, Apple did bare minimum to comply with regulators. But note that bare minimum is still not enough to make NAN truly seamless, so I don't expect many other manufacturers to adopt such a janky solution. The Pixel team just accepts that this is hack, and aggressively add contingencies to handle failures.
I also notice really weird threading behavior, and it's only in groups with iPhone users. Like 1 convo might split into two, and one retains the name we assigned it ("Parents' Anniversary Planning") and the other gets the default ("Jim, Bob, Joe, and Allen"). Even if they never send a message in the latter convo, they will still receive a seemingly random proportion of the messages we send in the named group chat. I'm pretty sure that's just poor implementation in context of MMS fallback, and not noncompliance. I'm positive they could have solved it on day 1 but it's still an issue.
r/AppleSucks also that messaging is the bane of my existence, I'm the only android user in my friend group that refuses to install signal. The group has 9 members and I have like 13 groups. Because each message can land in any group, because Apple would randomly fuck with you. It'll also send you "replied to", "liked a message", but which one is it.
It's part of google services and the android source code as far as I know. Google can give out the source code to samsung but only google and samsung knows if they did that or not. It's possible that they want to keep it Pixel exclusive for now.
Samsung is probably saving it for their next OneUI update and phone launch as a selling tactic seeing how the S26 lineup will have the same hardware as the last 3-4 generations (not counting the processor of course).
My guess? It'll be exclusive to the newest S series for some time, in order to capture sales because the hardware is going to be the same old shit. Eventually it will makes it's way to older phones.
It would be great for the consumer, but a dumb sales strategy to release such a useful feature to older generations before releasing it to their newest and most premium line.
Is it bullshit? Absolutely. Is it smart? Also, yes.. Do I hate this strategy? Also yes.
Such a stupid idea. They should be focused more on their current users some of which are going to switch to an iPhone because their current phone doesn't support airdrop.
It's marketing. Manufacturers do it all the time, and they'll continue to do it because it works. Just look at all the "exclusive" Pixel 10 features that aren't on the Pixel 9 because of "reasons", saying shit like ohh it's because of the AI chip.. Then you see later down the line it gets released on the older phone and we find out all that was BS to sell the shiny new thing. This isn't anything new.
Samsung shared their tech with Google so that Samsung's Quick Share and Google's Nearby Share could be merged into a single "Google Quick Share" standard that works on all Android devices and Windows PCs with the app installed. You'd expect Quick Share to work the same regardless of which device you're using it on.
TL;DR: Under pressure from the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), Apple is being forced to ditch its proprietary peer-to-peer Wi-Fi protocol – Apple Wireless Direct Link (AWDL) – in favor of the industry-standard Wi-Fi Aware, also known as Neighbor Awareness Networking (NAN). A quietly published EU interoperability roadmap mandates Apple support Wi-Fi Aware 4.0 in iOS 19 and v5.0,1 thereafter, essentially forcing AWDL into retirement. This post investigates how we got here (from Wi-Fi Direct to AWDL to Wi-Fi Aware), what makes Wi-Fi Aware technically superior, and why this shift unlocks true cross-platform peer-to-peer connectivity for developers.
That's not true. Yes, Apple is forced to support WiFi Aware but it has nothing to do with Google's AirDrop support. Google is simply pretending to be an Apple device.
Evidence 1: Google's implementation works with iOS 18, which doesn't have WiFi Aware support at all.
Evidence 2: Someone decompiled Google's airdrop extension and Google is faking User-Agent: AirDrop/1.0, BundleID: com.apple.finder.
Cuz Google doesn't own Galaxy phones. If Samsung wants to implement it in an update they can, but that's not up to Google to do that for them or any other company for that matter.
The irony of Google making this feature part of the pixel walled garden
I heard all snapdragon devices will be getting it. Not sure if google helped qualcomm but its coming.
As of now it's not even the pixel walled garden, it's the pixel 9&10 walled garden. Who knows, maybe by the time they'll bring it to older pixels they'll also bring it to other androids
Tbh it's just Pixel 10 right now, given that this is not even in the beta build
The irony of people continuing to bitch about Google in this sub not realizing that features that get rolled out to all of Android typically go to Pixels first.
Google segregates features between Pixel phones themselves. The newest ones get exclusive features for around a year, which then trickle down to the older Pixels over time, sometimes never.
Fr battery health wya
Some people claim it's because the older phones are more powerful but the truth is that the AI features run on the cloud anyway.
No, most of those new features don't run in the cloud. Gemini Nano is all on device.
I'd be fine with this if Quick Share were a proprietary Pixel implementation.
It's not, it's partially developed by Samsung, and there's no reason for Google to gatekeep an enhancement to a feature they initially rolled out via a Play Services update to most devices already.
*latest pixels
They may want to be slow to introduce it to the greater world of Android given how litigious Apple can be.
Apple has had way too many close calls with EU regulators to be doing anything like that at the moment or in the foreseeable future. Google has been slapped with billion dollar fines for things Apple somehow got away with; I see that as Google paying the troll under the bridge for doing all sorts of things like reverse engineering iMessage. Google should just be baiting Apple at this point.
Oneplus 13 has it
No it doesn't. Are you sure?
Not sure anymore I remember the option « Share with iPhone » when you want to share a file and it has the airdrop icon
You had to download a specific, niche app on the iOS device for it to work. It wasn't true Airdrop compatibility.
Oh ok I never did go that far in the process as I didn’t had both a Android and IOS device
And not on Pixel 8 ? Damn...
Maybe in another year, maybe not.
Nah, because Google acts like their previous devices don't exist once they're "old" (2+ generations ago).
Pixel Watch Users: y'all are getting new features for 2 years?
Makes me not want to get another pixel
I know the 7 is in tier but the 8.. I'm not so sure.
Another year? They announced it for the 10 a month ago...
Were talking about the 8 bruh, u good
Yeah. Pixel 10 got it in late November. Nothing gets released in December. Announced for the 9 in January. Why do you think it would take a year to roll out to the 8?
Cos it's entirely up to Google when they feel like offering it and come 2027 the 8 won't get much of anything so it's either this year or never.
Pixel 8 actually ships with a more capable radio than the Pixel 9 though, given that it supports BE320, and the Pixel 9 only does BE160...
I mean the 10 series literally just got it not even a couple months ago, I'm sure we'll get it soon this year. They always trickle features down the most recent models.
please let this come to he 9a as well
Same chip so maybe
Pixel 8 in 2027, Pixel 7 in 2028 and Pixel 6 in 2029 old Samsung trick with updates. In Apple World - ALL OR NOBODY
ALL HAIL APPLE
Considering:
I'd say your timeline is likely very wrong.
consider my rant
I guess having to backport a loophole for every single generation isn't particularly easy, kinda weird to praise apple for an issue they created
Why aren’t Samsung & others providing it?
Because they haven't reverse engineered the airdrop protocol
But hasn't Google already done that for them?
Looks like it was publicly reverse engineered 7 years ago https://github.com/seemoo-lab/opendrop
Apple's Wireless Direct Link (AWDL) has powered AirDrop since its inception. It allows for low-latency handshaking and file transfer. The handshaking is what apple has kept proprietary.
In 2025, the EU required phones to allow for effective nearby, direct, wireless file transfer. Apple is technically compliant because they opened up obscure APIs for WiFi Aware (aka Neighbor Awareness Networking, NAN), but these are not widely available. NAN allows for handshakes and file transfer.
In 2018-2019, OWL released the tool you found, which is AWDL. It only works on specific hardware and is not the AWDL clone you would hope it to be.
You can compare NAN to RCS. Apple did not open up iMessage nor Airdrop, they adopted RCS and NAN. It's just that the base implementation of NAN looks like feature-complete AirDrop. Handshake + transfer. With RCS, Apple did not use Google's E2EE proposal. In both cases, Apple did bare minimum to comply with regulators. But note that bare minimum is still not enough to make NAN truly seamless, so I don't expect many other manufacturers to adopt such a janky solution. The Pixel team just accepts that this is hack, and aggressively add contingencies to handle failures.
I also notice really weird threading behavior, and it's only in groups with iPhone users. Like 1 convo might split into two, and one retains the name we assigned it ("Parents' Anniversary Planning") and the other gets the default ("Jim, Bob, Joe, and Allen"). Even if they never send a message in the latter convo, they will still receive a seemingly random proportion of the messages we send in the named group chat. I'm pretty sure that's just poor implementation in context of MMS fallback, and not noncompliance. I'm positive they could have solved it on day 1 but it's still an issue.
r/AppleSucks also that messaging is the bane of my existence, I'm the only android user in my friend group that refuses to install signal. The group has 9 members and I have like 13 groups. Because each message can land in any group, because Apple would randomly fuck with you. It'll also send you "replied to", "liked a message", but which one is it.
It's part of google services and the android source code as far as I know. Google can give out the source code to samsung but only google and samsung knows if they did that or not. It's possible that they want to keep it Pixel exclusive for now.
Samsung is probably saving it for their next OneUI update and phone launch as a selling tactic seeing how the S26 lineup will have the same hardware as the last 3-4 generations (not counting the processor of course).
Thats going to be some massive fucking bullshit if they only give it to newest S series.
So they're 100% doing it.
My guess? It'll be exclusive to the newest S series for some time, in order to capture sales because the hardware is going to be the same old shit. Eventually it will makes it's way to older phones.
It would be great for the consumer, but a dumb sales strategy to release such a useful feature to older generations before releasing it to their newest and most premium line.
Is it bullshit? Absolutely. Is it smart? Also, yes.. Do I hate this strategy? Also yes.
Such a stupid idea. They should be focused more on their current users some of which are going to switch to an iPhone because their current phone doesn't support airdrop.
It's marketing. Manufacturers do it all the time, and they'll continue to do it because it works. Just look at all the "exclusive" Pixel 10 features that aren't on the Pixel 9 because of "reasons", saying shit like ohh it's because of the AI chip.. Then you see later down the line it gets released on the older phone and we find out all that was BS to sell the shiny new thing. This isn't anything new.
What makes you think companies just share their tech to competitors?
Samsung shared their tech with Google so that Samsung's Quick Share and Google's Nearby Share could be merged into a single "Google Quick Share" standard that works on all Android devices and Windows PCs with the app installed. You'd expect Quick Share to work the same regardless of which device you're using it on.
They both benefited from the merger, only Samsung would benefit from Google sharing this info. It's all about money
Merger? The only thing Google got out of that deal was the name.
Yeah but this is with a device competitor (Apple) known to almost never come to the party.
Ditto - Cross-Platform P2P Wi-Fi: How the EU Killed AWDL
How Did Google Get AirDrop Working on Android? - YouTube
TL;DR: AirDrop protocol was not reverse engineered. The EU forced Apple to adopt an industry standard Wi-Fi Aware protocol that Google can connect to.
That's not true. Yes, Apple is forced to support WiFi Aware but it has nothing to do with Google's AirDrop support. Google is simply pretending to be an Apple device.
Evidence 1: Google's implementation works with iOS 18, which doesn't have WiFi Aware support at all.
Evidence 2: Someone decompiled Google's airdrop extension and Google is faking User-Agent: AirDrop/1.0, BundleID: com.apple.finder.
See: https://v2ex.com/t/1174159 (This page is in Chinese)
Samsung is waiting for s26 release. It'll be a s26 series exclusive feature at first lol
Cuz Google doesn't own Galaxy phones. If Samsung wants to implement it in an update they can, but that's not up to Google to do that for them or any other company for that matter.
So about february until a stable build drop, I'm excited!
Just used 3rd party apps like blip at this point. It's just a click & send to ios devices. People are complaining about everything these days.
it really shows how Google supports their devices longer than some competitors
it's almost like this is purely a software feature that is artificially being blocked from older devices to sell units on an underwhelming phone