{"id":584845,"date":"2025-11-21T14:12:22","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T14:12:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/584845\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T14:12:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T14:12:22","slug":"pixel-airdropping-to-iphones-macs-and-ipads-works-great","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/584845\/","title":{"rendered":"Pixel Airdropping to iPhones, Macs, and iPads works great"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s pretty rare when a cool new gadget feature gets announced that you can try right away on your own devices. But that\u2019s exactly what happened yesterday when, out of the blue, Google announced<\/a> it had engineered a way to bring AirDrop interoperability to Pixel 10 phones \u2014 all without Apple\u2019s involvement.<\/p>\n

After the news dropped, an update started rolling out that enabled the feature, arriving first for the 10 Pro and 10 Pro XL, which I have on hand. And once I got past some initial snags, it became nothing but a joy just AirDropping shit left and right \u2014 to iPads, MacBooks, iPhones. It\u2019s all working, and it\u2019s beautiful.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s hope we get to keep it.<\/p>\n

Once the news broke, I set about updating everything on my Pixel 10 Pro that could be updated in an effort to get it to work. When that didn\u2019t get it up and running, I had the good sense to read Mishaal Rahman\u2019s how-to for Android Authority<\/a>, which steered me toward a Play Store listing for the system app I needed to install. My first and most consequential use case: getting a picture of a receipt from the Pixel phone to my work MacBook, something I have to do at least once a month. If I happen to be on iOS, that\u2019s easy \u2014 I just AirDrop it. When I\u2019m on Android, I use a work-around like Slacking myself, or, god forbid, putting it somewhere in Google Drive and praying I can find it on the other side. Is our national nightmare finally, kind of, over?<\/p>\n

My heart sank when my first attempts to AirDrop from the Pixel to the MacBook failed, but I restarted the laptop, and it\u2019s been working without a problem ever since. Note to self: consider restarting your computer more than once a fiscal quarter. I AirDropped myself a receipt for tacos. A video of my kid dancing at a bowling alley. A screen recording of me AirDropping a receipt to the computer. It all worked. AirDropping from the laptop to the phone works, too.<\/p>\n

AirDropping from the Pixel 10 Pro continues to work with other Apple devices, even those running developer betas or older OS versions. An iPad running iPadOS 18.6.2? Works fine. An iPhone 17 Pro running iOS 26.1 developer beta? Works. (I know, I\u2019m updating all of these devices tonight, don\u2019t yell at me.)<\/p>\n

\"<em>Sending<\/a>\"<em>Sending<\/a>PreviousNext<\/p>\n

1\/2<\/strong>Sending files over AirDrop on Android uses the Quick Share interface.<\/p>\n

You have to put the receiving Apple device into a \u201cvisible to all\u201d mode for it to work, which kinda sucks. But whatever. If Google\u2019s senior vice president of platforms and devices, Rick Osterloh, had gotten onstage at that Jimmy Fallon Pixel 10 launch event and said, \u201cBy the way, you can use AirDrop with the Pixel 10,\u201d instead of talking about a bunch of AI features, the crowd would have gone wild. But I guess Google either hadn\u2019t figured it out at that point or was planning on this weird stealth launch on a random Thursday in November. I don\u2019t really care which it is. I\u2019m just glad AirDrop for Android is here.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, there\u2019s good news and bad news. The good news is that Google says it plans to roll this out to \u201cother devices,\u201d which could mean other Pixel phones or \u2014 hopefully \u2014 Android phones more broadly. I\u2019m rooting hard for the latter. The bad news is, well, remember Beeper-gate<\/a>? When a third-party company figured out how to get iMessage onto Android phones, Apple said, \u201cOh hell no,\u201d and shut it down<\/a>. It\u2019s possible that it happens here. I reached out to Apple yesterday for a comment on the situation and I haven\u2019t heard back. That silence is making me a little worried about this project\u2019s long-term feasibility.<\/p>\n

But then there\u2019s the European Union of it all<\/p>\n

But then there\u2019s the European Union of it all. Ars Technica points out<\/a> that under the DMA, EU Regulators forced Apple to ditch its proprietary wireless protocol for one that\u2019s interoperable, which may be how Google engineered its way into AirDrop. Google isn\u2019t specific on that point, but says in a security blog post, \u201cThis feature does not use a workaround; the connection is direct and peer-to-peer, meaning your data is never routed through a server, shared content is never logged, and no extra data is shared.\u201d So maybe Google is hoping that by drumming up a lot of public support and publishing a report from an outside security firm that the EU will slap Apple\u2019s hand when it finds a way to shut this down. After all, we got RCS on the iPhone<\/a> thanks to EU pressure. Can\u2019t we have AirDrop on Android, as a little treat?<\/p>\n

However it happens, I hope this sticks. It will be a massive shame if Apple shuts this down. Let the computers work together, guys! We just want to move pictures of receipts around without getting a cloud server involved. Is that too much to ask? We\u2019ll find out, I guess. In the meantime, I\u2019ll be AirDropping stuff from this Pixel phone to my heart\u2019s content.<\/p>\n

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