Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo partner up to release an AirDrop-like wireless file transfer protocol

tech2 News StaffAug 19, 2019 14:54:57 IST

In what appears to be a surprising collaboration, three of China's biggest smartphone makers ie Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo are jointly making a new wireless file transfer protocol which will work between their devices.

Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo.

Quite like Apple's AirDrop service, this new peer-to-peer system will be using Bluetooth to pair devices and should be capable of transfer speeds of up to 20 MB/s, says a WeChat post by Xiaomi’s official MIUI account. Xiaomi says other smartphone makers are also welcome to join this trio to expand the reach of this protocol although it remains to be seen if China's biggest smartphone maker Huawei will join the ranks.

This isn't the first time as well when an AirDrop-like feature has been planned for Android. Back in 2011, Google introduced Android Beam to wirelessly transfer data between two phones using NFC. Although that feature is said to discontinue in Android Q, it will be replaced by 'Fast Share' which is an option that will appear in the share menu.

Since Fast Share is a feature which will run only devices which have Google Play Services, it effectively rules out China where the Mountain View-based tech giant is banned. This could be one reason for the consortium of Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo which collectively hold 49 percent of the Chinese market as per Counterpoint.