After introducing AirDrop support for Pixel 10 devices last year, Google is now ready to extend it to phones made by other Android partners. Eric Kay, vice president of engineering for Android, confirmed at a press conference he attended Android Authority that “many more” Android devices will be able to use Quick Share to initiate AirDrop sessions with Apple devices this year.
“We spent a lot of time and energy making sure we could build something that was compatible not only with iPhones, but also iPads and MacBooks,” Kay said. “Now that we’ve done that, we’re working with our partners to expand into the rest of the ecosystem, and you should see some exciting announcements soon.”
Currently, Google’s Pixel 10 phones are the only Android devices that can use Quick Share — Android’s native peer-to-peer wireless transfer feature, formerly known as Nearby Sharing — to communicate directly with Apple’s AirDrop. Google has yet to outline any specific Android partners or devices for the update, but both Nothing and chipmaker Qualcomm claimed in November that support was coming.
Kay also discussed Google’s efforts to improve the process for iOS users who switch to Android, which helps prevent incomplete data transfers, lost messages and other issues. Apple has been working on a “user-friendly” way to transfer data from iPhones to other devices since early 2024, and the joint effort between Google and Apple was tested on Android Canary 2512 for Pixel devices in December.
“We’ll also be working to make it easier for people who decide to switch to transfer their data and make sure they have everything they had from their old phone,” Kay said at the same briefing. “So there’s a lot more going on with it.