Its amazing to me how AirDrop is such a big plus for Apple ecosystem even in 2024 given technologically it is one of the simplest things possible.
The innovation is purely on the alignment of interests Apple has and its competitors don't because they are all competing with each other and then also Apple.
Google calls this feature "quick share." Of course the problem is that it's all proprietary and Apple has no interest in supporting transfers with non Apple devices.
It's pretty typical on HN to see somebody singing the praises of apple while failing to notice the competition provides similar functionality.
>technologically it is one of the simplest things possible
then how come there are zero FOSS "AirDrop replacements" that seamlessly create an ad-hoc wireless network between two devices to allow for truly p2p high speed transfers?
My guess is that it's difficult to interface with the system's Bluetooth and WiFi sufficiently without a native app on any modern platform (iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, Linux) enough to create and advertise that kind of ad hoc network, without a native app on the device (perhaps even with system permissions).
Since Apple won't implement any third party one, and theirs is natively integrated with their platform, half the ecosystem won't implement or adopt any FOSS alternative.
Since such an alternative won't be pre loaded on handsets (and the Android ecosystem is complex without one single vendor producing firmware everyone ships), the rival would need to be installed manually by users before use.
Not impossible - WhatsApp and other apps have (in some markets) gained near-ubiquity without being built-in, but I think the native app barrier here will always be a hurdle. And Apple presumably knows and strategizes that an alternative won't gain adoption if their half of the ecosystem won't adopt it, therefore holding back the wider market and keeping airdrop functionality as a USP.
There is KDEConnect, which has apps for all major platforms (iOS, android, macOS, Windows and of course Linux) and some more. I even used between Apple devices when AirDrop did not work for some reason.
Proprietary lock-in methods might put you on the cover of CEO Magazine (if that exists), but it's not innovation.
Here's how Apple describes its EU-mandated USB-C port on the iPhone 15, after rejecting criticisms about proprietary cables for years:
"The new USB-C connector lets you charge your Mac or iPad with the same cable you use to charge iPhone 15. You can even use iPhone 15 to charge Apple Watch or AirPods.5 Bye-bye, cable clutter."
The reason this keeps happening is because Apple (and Google) keep widening the feature gap between computers and phones, because the latter gives consumers far less choice when it comes to using third-party applications and peripherals.
You might want to checkout https://prismos.dev
Full disclosure: This is a project I built addressing the exact same problems,
its open source and currently more focused on building an easy to approach platform for developers and students new to the hardware scene
This sounds like (for now) the first step towards something like shared runtime for electron apps, would greatly solve the perf issues associated with electron.
I built https://github.com/SiDevesh/Quark-Carlo a while ago to convert web apps to native apps using the installed chrome browser as a runtime, using the carlo project by google, google killed it pretty soon though.
This way apps would only have to package their own node runtime (since a lot of electron apps use native modules or modified version of nodejs) and use chromium from the system.
The above project by me does the same thing and the size and memory requirement is greatly reduced, (apps come at average of 40mb as compared to 120mb for electron apps).
Full Stack and have worked on Backend, Frontend, Mobile apps, IoT.
Have contributions in several widely used open source projects (react-native-webview, lobste.rs to name a few) and have many widely used libraries of my own.
Backend: Ruby + rails, nodejs + express
Frontend - Web: React.js
Mobile apps: React Native, Flutter
IoT: esp8266, esp32, Arduino, Prism platform (https://prismos.dev, built in house)
Technologies: Full Stack and have worked on Backend, Frontend, Mobile apps, IoT.
Backend: Ruby + rails, nodejs + express
Frontend - Web: reactjs
Mobile apps: React Native, Flutter
IoT: esp8266, esp32, Arduino, Prism platform (https://prismos.dev, built in house)
I just applied to it for https://prismos.dev
this is something I have been building for 3 years on the side and while I feel its amazing what this allows one to do,
which is build IoT apps with a super easy API and install apps on your esp8266 IoT devices from an App store, no flashing and seamless end user experience,
its still seems difficult to monetize to me till far so no point raising funding (atleast till i figure out a go to market strategy),
but I would still want people to start using it.
While the amount isn't a lot, if it can allow me to fund my AWS infra for a year without worrying about cash while I spend money in promoting it from my pocket, then its great for me.
Full Stack and have worked on Backend, Frontend, Mobile apps, IoT.
Have contributions in several widely used open source projects (react-native-webview, lobste.rs to name a few) and have many widely used libraries of my own.
Backend: Ruby + rails, nodejs + express
Frontend - Web: reactjs
Mobile apps: React Native, Flutter
IoT: esp8266, esp32, Arduino, Prism platform (https://prismos.dev, built in house)
Technologies:
Full Stack and have worked on Backend, Frontend, Mobile apps, IoT.
Have contributions in several widely used open source projects (react-native-webview, lobste.rs to name a few) and have many widely used libraries of my own.
Backend: Ruby + rails, nodejs + express
Frontend - Web: reactjs
Mobile apps: React Native, Flutter
IoT: esp8266, esp32, Arduino, Prism platform (https://prismos.dev, built in house)
Full Stack and have worked on Backend, Frontend, Mobile apps, IoT.
Have contributions in several widely used open source projects (react-native-webview, lobste.rs to name a few) and have many widely used libraries of my own.
Backend: Ruby + rails, nodejs + express Frontend - Web: reactjs
Mobile apps: React Native, Flutter
IoT: esp8266, esp32, Arduino, Prism platform (https://prismos.dev, built in house)
Besides that I love figuring out things and helping people in building what they envision and would love to help either ways.
Drop me a message at me@sidevesh.com
