Google has been working for at least a year on its equivalent to Apple’s AirDrop. Initially known as Fast Share, although his latest appearances seem to confirm that he will be named Nearby. It will be a system for transmit files at high speed between nearby devices, and among these devices could also be computers.
Obviously, Nearby Sharing is expected to be compatible between Android devices, although there were already rumors from a long time ago that it could spread beyond mobile devices. It is precisely Chromebooks that give us a clue, with a Chrome flag for activate Nearby Sharing on Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome OS.
Nearby Sharing for everyone
AirDrop works in Apple’s ecosystem, but Google’s Nearby claims it doesn’t understand ecosystems and would be available to everyone (except for iPhone). This is how it is noticed in a Chrome flag in Canary builds (in development) of Chrome OS.
Nearby Sharing
Turn on Nearby Sharing to share content between devices. Mac, Windows, Linux, Chrome OS.
At the moment, activating this option at the moment does not appear to make any changes to the operating system, but the evidence is clear that the system stops Google file sharing would be more universal than we originally believed. In case there are doubts if the Nearby Sharing of Chrome OS is the same as that of Android, the code includes the text “activate Nearby Sharing functionality. Android already has a native implementation”
Nearby Sharing shows up in #chromebook settings pic.twitter.com/Z2V5UrgPT4
– Dinsan (@_dinsan) June 19, 2020
At the moment we do not have much official information about Nearby Sharing by Google, although its operation leaked a few months ago. This of share things between mobile and PC through Chrome it is not something totally new for Google, since last year the company introduced the possibility of sending Chrome websites from mobile to PC and vice versa.
Track | 9to5Google