Joe Maring / Android Authority
TL;DR
- We’ve managed to activate the UI for Tap to Share, an upcoming feature that will allow instant transfer of photos, videos, contacts, and more.
- Users will have to overlap the top of their phones to account for differing NFC antenna positions across Android phones.
Late last month, we joined the dots on Android’s upcoming “Tap to Share” feature, as code for it appeared across One UI builds and Android Canary releases. We’ve now managed to activate the UI for the feature, giving us a better look at what to expect from Android’s AirDrop-style Tap to Share feature.
Tap to Share, in its current state of readiness in Google Play Services v26.15.31, looks like this:
AssembleDebug / Android Authority
Through this, we learn that users can instantly share contact info, photos, videos, links, location, and “more.” Much like on iOS, Tap to Share requires users to unlock their phones for a transfer, but unlike iOS, it requires the top of both phones to overlap (while iOS requires a bump of the top edge). Google explicitly states that you should be able to see both screens and that you must keep both phones together until they glow. But if the feature doesn’t work right away, Google also advises users to try holding both phones back-to-back.
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If we’re allowed to guess, the overlap instruction may be intended to account for different NFC chip placements on Android phones, as some have it placed below the camera module. An overlap of the back provides ample opportunity for the NFC chips to be close enough to communicate with each other.
AssembleDebug / Android Authority
The contact sharing screen looks slightly different from our initial coverage:
AssembleDebug / Android Authority
⚠️ An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
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