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askldfhalkdfhtoday at 2:17 PM2 repliesview on HN

This. Localsend may be very useful for a set of devices you control or influence. The USP of Airdrop is ad hoc sharing with people you don't really know. Classic case is meeting strangers on holiday and you want to swap some photos of the trip you're on. One or both of you doesn't have data or time to install anything, or it's just too hard to persuade someone they should install random app. Pairing Bluetooth or setting up local networks is way too convoluted and time consuming.

With Airdrop you have trivially easy, "just works" sharing with people in proximity. It works great between iPhones and Pixel phones now they support it. It just needs support to spread to more Android devices.


Replies

davelytoday at 2:35 PM

> With Airdrop you have trivially easy, "just works" sharing with people in proximity.

Funny enough, I encounter so many problems trying to share things via AirDrop with friends, family, and even my own Apple devices that I just tell everyone to install LocalSend and I find that things work better.

I’m not sure why that is, because AirDrop used to work pretty well for me. But it’s been an exercise in frustration more often than not for me.

(Obviously, LocalSend works only as long as everyone is on the same network.)

t43562today at 3:00 PM

setting up local networks is so trivial compared to forcing everyone to buy an Apple gizmo.

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