When Apple introduced NameDrop to the iPhone and Apple Watch with the release of iOS 17, many weren’t sure how to feel about the new contact sharing option. In fact, many flocked to find guides on how to disable NameDrop as soon as it was widely available, with some law enforcement agencies even issuing warnings about the feature, urging users to turn it off.
While those warnings allude to the feature being a bit more of a security flaw than it really is, as NameDrop still requires user verification to send information to another device, that hasn’t stopped the feature from becoming one of the more underrated contact sharing solutions built directly into the operating system. And now, it looks like Google might follow suit with something similar.
According to a new APK teardown from Android Authority, Google first included code for a NameDrop-like feature in v25.44.32 beta of Google Play Services. The blog claims to have discovered strings of code tied to two features called Gesture Exchange and Contact Exchange. Now, with the release of Google Play Services v25.46.31, the folks behind that report were able to actually enable one of the features attached to the new system.
An early look at Android’s NameDrop rival
Just like its iOS counterpart, Google’s Contact Exchange feature appears to offer both a Share and Receive only option for those who plan to use it. It’s still unclear exactly how it will work — NameDrop can be activated by placing two iOS devices with it enabled right next to each other — though it’s believed it will use NFC much in the same way that Apple’s feature does. That said, it’s impossible to say for sure without Google officially announcing the feature. You can see how NameDrop looks in action in the video above.
It’s also a bit early to nail down what Google plans to call this feature, as Contact Exchange and Gesture Exchange both sound like work-in-progress names and not something you name a major operating system feature. It’s also unclear whether this new feature will launch as part of Android 16 or if Google will push it over to Android 17 sometime in the future.
