JOIN USOppo, Vivo, Xiaomi to bring Apple AirDrop-like feature
Four Chinese mobile-phone makers Oppo, Realme, Vivo, and Xiaomi have joined forces to offer a super-fast mode of file transfer between Android phones.
It doesn't come as a surprise for many, as Oppo, Vivo, and Realme are subsidiaries of same parent company BBK Electronics Corporation, but their partnership with the arch-rival Xiaomi was unexpected.
That being said, it will greatly benefit Android phones particularly in China and India, which by the way are world's two biggest markets and also, all the aforementioned companies are top five companies having more than 50-percent market share in total. (In China: ~49%; In India: ~60% -- as per International Data Corporation Q2 2019 report).
Millions of users will benefit from this new cross-band file transfer feature, which will work similarly to Apple AirDrop. It supports numerous file formats such as video, audio music, photos and documents in the form of PDFs and other types. If the official Weibo account of Xiaomi's MIUI handle is to be believed, it supports up to 20MBps speed.
It does not require users to download any third-party app on their phones. It is likely to come via firmware to all eligible devices and once updated, it will work seamlessly between Vivo, Oppo, Realme and Xiaomi phones.
However, there is no word whether it has a file size limit or on how much range of area, it will work.
This comes weeks after reports of Google developing a similar type of file transfer feature -Fast Share. It is currently being tested and is likely to be rolled out via firmware update to Google Play services.
Google's Fast Share is an advanced version of Android Beam. Unlike the latter, which uses Near Field Communication (NFC), the Fast Share is said to use Bluetooth and location services in addition to Wi-Fi for pairing with the nearby device to share files.
Fast Share is also said to come with 'Preferred Visibility' option so that the device owner's friends or acquaintances can easily detect the phone to accept /decline the file share request.
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