Being a tech journalist, I know I should remain unbiased and treat each smartphone brand equally. Still, I have a soft spot for Galaxy smartphones in my heart (I’m only human, after all, just like you guys). Unfortunately, the entire Galaxy S26 series offered such minor upgrades over its predecessors that even the part of me that usually favors Samsung devices wasn’t convinced. That changed yesterday, however, as Samsung officially confirmed that its latest Galaxy S series phones will get Apple’s best feature, and I couldn’t be more excited about these devices now.
Transferring files to Apple devices would become a cakewalk
Many smartphones, including those in the Galaxy S series, give tough competition to the iPhone in the photography department. However, when it comes to video recording, Apple devices are far ahead of any of their competitors. That said, whenever I need to transfer a video that my friends have recorded on their iPhone to my Galaxy S25, I use different methods.
I either ask them to send the video to my WhatsApp by converting it into a document (to make sure its quality isn’t lost during transfer) or request that they upload it to a cloud platform like Google Drive and share the link with me. Honestly, neither option is very smooth, and both take a lot of time.
But Samsung might finally fix this pain point. Choi Won-Joon, the COO of Samsung’s mobile division, recently said in a press conference that the company will soon introduce AirDrop support to the Galaxy S26 lineup through a software update. While no concrete timeline was provided for when we can expect the feature, it seems to be coming very soon, as we’ve already heard about this upgrade a couple of times recently. A reliable tipster, chunvn8888, even shared before the Galaxy Unpacked event that AirDrop compatibility could arrive on the Galaxy S26 series.
Since it’s most likely a software feature, it’s expected to roll out to previous Galaxy smartphones as well, including my Galaxy S25. Samsung could apparently follow the same approach that Google adopted when introducing this upgrade to its Pixel phones. It was first introduced in the Pixel 10 series and has since been slowly made available to previous Pixel models as well.
Once my Galaxy S25 becomes compatible with AirDrop, I’ll be able to share files seamlessly and at faster speeds with my Apple-using friends. I already enjoy this benefit on my Pixel 10, and now I’m really excited to experience it on my Samsung device as well.
Finally, a reason to get the Galaxy S26
Soon after the Galaxy Unpacked event, one of my friends who owns a Galaxy S24 reached out to me, asking why he should upgrade to the latest Galaxy phone. Honestly, I couldn’t think of any upgrades that would convince him to buy it.
The privacy display was definitely out of the equation since it is exclusive to the S26 Ultra variant, and his budget only allowed him to get the vanilla option. But the news of AirDrop support coming to the new Samsung phones could be reason enough for him to finally consider buying the S26.
All that said, the feature is expected to land on the Oppo Find X9 series as well by the end of this month. This clearly indicates that AirDrop, which was once an Apple-exclusive feature, isn’t exclusive anymore and is now slowly being rolled out to different smartphone brands.
