After years of users struggling with the features, Google finally debuted its own version of Apple’s AirDrop last year. Now we’ve noticed what’s next for Nearby Sharing – the ability to see everyone around you and send files to more than one person at a time.
Near Share is already useful in its current form, but there is plenty of room for improvement. As it currently stands, the feature can only share files, links and other pieces of information with one person and one device at a time, and the person must also be a known contact person.
In an upcoming update, Near Share will extend visibility to any device in your area, with the setting appropriately named ‘Everyone’. The setting is optional, of course, but it will allow everyone in your area to share media with your device as long as your screen is unlocked. Apple’s AirDrop has a similar feature that can sometimes be abused in hilarious ways in schools and other places. To prevent this type of abuse, however, Near Share will offer a ‘temporary mode’ that, after switching back to the previous one after five minutes, only starts contact. With this change, the “All Contacts” mode changes to a link rather than a dedicated mode.
We also discovered that the nearby quick setting link would soon launch a refreshed pop-up menu with the same UI at the bottom. With this new menu you can quickly switch between the “Everyone” and contact options. Tap the icon immediately starts a close-up window to share, but when this new visibility setting is added, the user interface will be replaced by changing the visibility options. The quick settings icon will also indicate whether the feature is turned on or not – definitely a valuable addition.
In addition, we also discovered that a nearby section will soon support some form of group sharing. It allows users to share their information not just on one device or contact, but in the same way with multiple targets. Unfortunately, this feature is not yet fully functional. You can see below what it will look like when used, but when we try the feature, failure.
In particular, it seems that this feature will not share media to all devices at exactly the same time, but rather one in a row. This may change before the final release. This is still a significant improvement over the current situation.
The timeline for these features making their formal debut is currently unknown, as is usual with early findings like this. Google has been formally releasing Nearly Share for over a year now, for example, when we first discovered it. It’s nice to see that Google is actively working to expand the scope of this very useful feature.
Dylan Roussel contributed to this article.
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