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spencecb

Suspended
Nov 20, 2003
1,187
215
Ah. Thanks for this. I've been wondering this all along.

And before someone says "another example of Apple withholding features from previous gen devices to force people to upgrade their hardware..." You should understand this:

Wifi Direct is as hardware function. So, if the wifi chip in a device does not support the function, then adding the software support in can not make it work. It's the same reason my early 2009 iMac does not have Airdrop capability.
 

joejoejoe

macrumors 65816
Sep 13, 2006
1,428
110
huge bummer.

can't believe i'm considering upgrading my ipad for this. it would be immensely useful.
 

gentlefury

macrumors 68030
Jul 21, 2011
2,866
23
Los Angeles, CA
Ah. Thanks for this. I've been wondering this all along.

And before someone says "another example of Apple withholding features from previous gen devices to force people to upgrade their hardware..." You should understand this:

Wifi Direct is as hardware function. So, if the wifi chip in a device does not support the function, then adding the software support in can not make it work. It's the same reason my early 2009 iMac does not have Airdrop capability.

The odd thing is, why doesn't it work from iOS 7 to Mac? Same function, right?
 

Rjjcvb

macrumors member
May 25, 2012
34
15
Instashare

Hi,

Yeah it is a sad thing that My idevices (iPhone 4s and iPad 3) does not support airdrop.

But hey, Instashare does the trick. With larger files or when I am not at home I just ad hoc from my iPhone and transfer files to iPad this way.

ps: I also send files to my mac and friends with android Android
 

benji888

macrumors 68000
Sep 27, 2006
1,889
410
United States
The odd thing is, why doesn't it work from iOS 7 to Mac? Same function, right?

Yeah, only Mac to Mac, and iOS to iOS. :confused:
"OS X and iOS use different AirDrop protocols and are currently not interoperable.[1] AirDrop in OS X operates over Wi-Fi, whereas the iOS implementation utilizes both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirDrop

In both cases, AirDrop uses wifi direct, a hardware option only found in the latest Apple devices. In the case of iOS devices, they also need to have low-power bluetooth (4.0). (iOS 7 uses BT to find others and connect. Both use wifi direct to securely transfer data (& puts up a firewall on both sides), no network connection needed.)

for iOS: "AirDrop is available on iPhone 5 or later, iPad (4th generation), iPad mini, and iPod touch (5th generation) and requires an iCloud account." taken from footnote 5: http://www.apple.com/ios/whats-new/#airdrop

As far as between iOS & OS X: I am sure this is a temporary situation. Apple would not have used the same name and not make it compatible between iOS & OS X. However, they may not implement it before iOS 8, even though, I'd like to see it in iOS 7.1 :D. ...But, I think the OS X end is where a change might need to be made to connect to iOS 7 AirDrop.
 
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