Despite not revealing the feature during its recent Galaxy S20 keynote, Samsung has confirmed that it’s launching an AirDrop like feature called ‘Quick Share’ alongside the Galaxy S20, S20 Plus and S20 Ultra.
Samsung says that the feature will allow S20 users to “share everything” with their friends “instantly.” Just like with the iPhone and iPad’s AirDrop, Quick Share displays what contacts are nearby. That said, it’s possible to send files to up to five friends simultaneously, which is a clear advantage over AirDrop given it only works with one thing at a time. Unfortunately, it seems like only S20 devices are capable of using Quick Share.
XDA Developers leaked screenshots of Quick Share in action late last month, but this is the first confirmation we have that it actually exists. It’s currently unclear when Samsung plans to eventually bring the feature to more of its devices, with the tech giant only stating that Quick Share will get a wider release “soon.” Google is also reportedly working on its own AirDrop-like feature called ‘Nearby Sharing’ for Pixel devices.
More details about Quick Share can be found on Samsung’s official website.
Given how useful AirDrop is on Apple’s devices, it’s great to see an Android device maker implementing similar functionality. But because Quick Share is only coming to the S20, it’s not going to have a very wide audience. Hopefully, at some point, Google implements its own version of AirDrop that isn’t powered by NFC across Android and Chrome at the operating system level.
