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A comment on Setting the Bozo Bit on Apple. Parent comment

Re:Setting the Bozo Bit on Apple by hot_gril on Friday January 13, 2023 @02:08PM (#34372399)
Android in the past was surprisingly terrible at copying data to/from PCs. Anyone saying it works great is using some third-party tool that requires extra setup, or they aren't syncing a lot of stuff (media libraries, and iTunes used to also sync email accounts and some other settings). Aside from the lack of a proper syncing tool like iTunes, the basic Android File Transfer was broken. In some cases, you had to enable it with a secret combo like "go to settings and tap the model name exactly 7 times," which was seriously how you did it on some Galaxy phones.

Android was always focused on cloud stuff, which makes sense given that their biggest markets are places where most people don't have PCs, plus Google wants that halo effect from Android. I appreciated that iPhones were designed for my PC too. But iPhones were generally bad at copying any other data ad-hoc. They added AirDrop specifically for this, and... Like 90% of the time I don't see my other device, or the transfer fails. I don't even bother anymore.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Setting the Bozo Bit on Apple by thewebcount on Friday January 13, 2023 @06:38PM (#34375444)
> They added AirDrop specifically for this, and... Like 90% of the time I don't see my other device, or the transfer fails. I don't even bother anymore.

Oh god! This bugs me so much. I don't understand why it's so hard to get this right. I'm sure it is, but why?

I know that if one of my devices switches from our 5GHz to our 2.4GHz network this can happen, but even when they're on the same network, it happens sometimes. (And why do my devices keep trying to force themselves off of the 5GHz network? WTF?)

And I get that it's called "Airdrop", but I'd really like it to work over ethernet, too, since that's a lot faster!

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Setting the Bozo Bit on Apple by hot_gril on Friday January 13, 2023 @07:30PM (#34375900)
I read that AirDrop uses Bluetooth to make machines handshake then transfers the actual data over a p2p wifi network. But I vaguely remember it also working over existing networks, even with ethernet. Either way, it's complicated and thus unreliable. I'm guessing Bluetooth is the weakest link there, cause I have a hard time even pairing speakers with that crap.

Check if BT is enabled on both your phones.

[ Parent | on HN ]