Quick Share teams up with AirDrop: How Google solved the file-sharing divide

What you need to know

• Google announced that its Android phones, the Pixel 10 series, can now send files from Quick Share to iPhones using AirDrop.
• Users must enable their devices to accept "Everyone for 10 minutes" before being able to send files between Android and iPhone.
• Google says it will look to incorporate more Android phones into the mix, enabling more options for users to send files to iPhones.

Google announces a major update that's starting to roll out for its Pixel phones and Apple's iPhones that makes file sharing even easier.

Announced this morning, Google states that it's preparing an update for its Pixel 10 series that makes it possible for Android's file-sharing app, Quick Share, to work with Apple's AirDrop. Once this arrives, when tapping Quick Share to send a file to another phone, users with a Pixel 10 should begin to pick up iPhones. This new capability is said to work vice versa, as well.

Though these are different (even competitive) devices on different operating systems, Google said it built this capability "with security at its core."

The company states it has tested its "strong safeguards" with "independent security experts" to ensure that the data you're sending between devices remains protected. It's worth mentioning that so long as your Android device and iPhone are prepared to receive files from others, this Quick Share/AirDrop update will work seamlessly. Moreover, Google says this won't stay a Pixel 10 exclusive ability.

The post states that the company will look to improve how Quick Share and AirDrop function alongside one another, as well as looking to offer this update to "more Android devices." There's no timeline set for this just yet, so it's unclear how long other phones will be waiting.

Android & iOS look like the best of friends

This update should begin rolling out today (Nov 20) for the devices involved, so keep your eyes peeled for it.

This is, in essence, a major update for how Android and iOS (Google and Apple) work with one another, following the whole RCS situation. Last September, Apple started rolling out RCS on its iPhones through iOS 18. This update finally brought read receipts, sharper photos, and an overall well-improved chatting experience between iPhones and Android devices that previously leveraged the old, clunky SMS standard. This was everything Google was fighting for in its #GetTheMessage campaign, even if it had nothing to do with its implementation in the end.

However, it wasn't until earlier this year that iPhones got the E2EE (end-to-end encryption) side of that RCS update, which is really what we're all here for. The GSM Association announced the new RCS Universal Profile 3.0, which brought encryption to RCS. Why this might seem strange (since Google Messages has encryption), RCS never had encryption levels like that. Google was the one that implemented it for users. Now, with the RCS standard as a whole adopting stronger protections for user messages, everyone can get in on it, including Apple's iPhones.