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  • The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android cansupport AirDrop

    From Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?=@ldo@nz.invalid to comp.misc on Fri Nov 21 03:16:32 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.misc

    People in the US like to make fun of the seemingly endless
    bureaucratic hurdles that the EU Governments keep putting in the way
    of US companies looking to make a quick buck. You know, having to
    worry about boring things like “privacy” and “interoperability” and “security”, that kind of thing. Oh, and maintaining free-market
    competition -- imagine lecturing the USA about how to achieve that!

    But every now and then, this endless stream of new regulations hits
    the jackpot. Like how Google is suddenly able to offer full two-way compatibility with Apple’s formerly-proprietary “AirDrop” feature for exchanging files between mobile devices -- the file exchange is done
    directly, peer-to-peer, without going through any central servers.

    It’s all down to the fact that the EU forced Apple to move away from
    the completely proprietary low-level radio protocol it was originally
    using for AirDrop, towards something that was more amenable to exactly
    the sort of reverse-engineering of the higher-level protocol that
    Google did.

    Of course Apple did also contribute work towards the new standard,
    just as it did with USB Type-C; it’s better to be seen to be
    cooperating with inevitability, rather than futilely trying to fight
    it tooth and nail.

    <https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/11/the-eu-made-apple-adopt-new-wi-fi-standards-and-now-android-can-support-airdrop/>
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  • From candycanearter07@candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid to comp.misc on Fri Nov 21 17:10:03 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.misc

    Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote at 03:16 this Friday (GMT):
    People in the US like to make fun of the seemingly endless
    bureaucratic hurdles that the EU Governments keep putting in the way
    of US companies looking to make a quick buck. You know, having to
    worry about boring things like “privacy” and “interoperability” and “security”, that kind of thing. Oh, and maintaining free-market competition -- imagine lecturing the USA about how to achieve that!

    But every now and then, this endless stream of new regulations hits
    the jackpot. Like how Google is suddenly able to offer full two-way compatibility with Apple’s formerly-proprietary “AirDrop” feature for exchanging files between mobile devices -- the file exchange is done directly, peer-to-peer, without going through any central servers.

    It’s all down to the fact that the EU forced Apple to move away from
    the completely proprietary low-level radio protocol it was originally
    using for AirDrop, towards something that was more amenable to exactly
    the sort of reverse-engineering of the higher-level protocol that
    Google did.

    Of course Apple did also contribute work towards the new standard,
    just as it did with USB Type-C; it’s better to be seen to be
    cooperating with inevitability, rather than futilely trying to fight
    it tooth and nail.

    <https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/11/the-eu-made-apple-adopt-new-wi-fi-standards-and-now-android-can-support-airdrop/>


    I wouldn't be suprised if they region lock it to the EU, like they did
    with the whole custom app store issue.
    --
    user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom
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