Sharing on Android has always been a bit of a mixed bag. While sharing information between apps has always been done better in Android than in other mobile operating systems, sharing between devices has always been a bit of a pain. Google’s new Nearby Share service, which was once called Fast Share as recently as November, aims to finally fix what’s been missing in Android for a very long time. Users aren’t the only ones that have been clamoring for an AirDrop-like feature for a long time either; OPPO, VIVO, and Xiaomi all recently unveiled their own joint-partnership to bring an AirDrop-like service to these brands’ respective phones.
XDA Developers found a brand new build of the upcoming service, dated January 10, and with that new date comes a brand new name. Once called Fast Share, Nearby Share seems to be a better brand for a service that’s specifically designed to share information with other devices that are detected within one foot of your phone. That’s an important differentiator when comparing other services, like Apple’s AirDrop, or the older device-to-device sharing method called Android Beam.
Google and Android are often accused of copying things from Apple and while some Android fans will deny most of that, they will also admit that there are some features they wished Android did actually copy. One of those is Apple’s AirDrop functionality which makes it dead simple to share files between iOS devices. That may finally be coming soon to Android under the name “Nearby Sharing” unless Google decides to change names again at the last minute.