Holy Sh*t, Google Made Android Play Good With iPhone’s AirDrop

I need you to brace your self, as a result of, regardless of what I’m about to let you know, the world (to my data) just isn’t ending. Are you prepared? Okay… Google made Android and Apple’s AirDrop play good with one another. Deep breaths, everybody.

In a blog post from Google, the corporate stated Fast Share, the Android equal of AirDrop, can now ship recordsdata by way of Bluetooth to an iPhone identical to it could possibly between two Android gadgets. The identical goes the opposite manner, too; iOS customers can now AirDrop to Android gadgets by discovering the machine as they usually would on their iPhones. They each simply… work now.

There’s one slight catch at this juncture in time, and that’s the truth that solely Google Pixel 10 house owners have this means in the interim. Google says it plans to carry the performance to different Android gadgets sooner or later—that’s, if Apple doesn’t have a complete meltdown first.

As reported by The Verge, to make issues much more intriguing, Google says that this sudden interoperability was not accomplished in live performance with Apple. Moderately, Google went forward and cracked this code all by itself, by “its personal implementation,” including that its safety course of has been vetted by a 3rd social gathering. Given the dearth of cooperation, there’s a definitive likelihood that each one of it will come crashing down. Belief me, I’ve seen how these iOS workarounds go ( you, Nothing Chats), they usually’re not so simple as they’re made to sound.

Nothing CEO Carl Pei, which makes telephones just like the Nothing Phone 3 and Phone 3a Lite, said on X his firm is “already exploring learn how to carry this to Nothing telephones as quickly as we will.”

If you happen to’re curious how this all works in motion, right here’s a video demonstration from Google under, and Google additionally has official help documentation of how the process happens here. From what I can inform by the documentation and the video, it seems to be about as intuitive because it will get. For the file, we weren’t in a position to get the function to work at Gizmodo, but folks over at Bloomberg appear to have had extra success.

Sharing moments shouldn’t rely on the cellphone you might have. Beginning at this time with the Pixel 10 household, Fast Share now works with AirDrop, making safe file transfers between Android telephones and iPhones extra seamless. This builds on our dedication to cross-OS compatibility to bridge… pic.twitter.com/iNdZfjCYQ7

— Android (@Android) November 20, 2025

It’s been a sluggish course of, however Apple’s walled backyard is certainly much more scalable than it was once. First, there was RCS support, which allowed sure function interoperability between iOS and Android, like tapbacks, learn receipts, and higher image/video messaging and group chats. That course of, which was truly sanctioned by Apple, was a very long time coming and was extra a product of exterior stress on Apple to make iOS extra pleasant with different ecosystems, or, to place it one other manner, much less anti-competitive. Moreover, there was the entire European Union forcing Apple to adopt USB-C factor, which… thank god.

Whereas higher performance between AirDrop and Fast Share doesn’t seem to have been the product of the identical stress, there’s an opportunity that it might nonetheless stick, given the truth that regulators appear to be extra aware of potential anti-competitiveness. Within the occasion that Apple places its foot down, would Google enchantment its case? I don’t know, possibly. Or possibly Apple gained’t even strive, understanding full properly it’s misplaced related battles in recent times.

For now, all now we have is theory and slightly hope. Possibly our cellular computing simply truly, for actual, and for good, acquired slightly bit simpler.