Talking about Samsung and Apple is talking about the dog and the cat: two leading companies in completely different software ecosystems, both due to the nature of Android and how Samsung differentiates OneUI from Google’s native system.
One of the historical points of friction between both platforms has always been AirDropthe file transfer system that Android tried to emulate with QuickShare. Surprisingly, Samsung has just announced that its phones will begin to be compatible with this protocol.
AirDrop is compatible with Samsung. Starting with the Samsung Galaxy S26, S26+ and S6 UltraAirDrop will begin to support Quick Share. In other words, we can send files between Samsung and iPhone with their corresponding wireless protocols.
The novelty is beginning to be implemented in South Korea, and will begin to soon expand to Europe and Latin America. Although the Galaxy S26 are the first lucky ones, Samsung has confirmed that it will later reach more models.
How is it possible. Google made Quick Share and AirDrop interoperable on your Pixeland now partners like Samsung benefit from it. The company kept secret how it was possible to make its protocol work with Apple’s (completely closed a priori), and the answer lay with the European Union.
As explains my colleague Javier Pastorwith the new EU guidelines Apple had to adopt interoperable wireless standards starting with iOS 26. This was a blow for AWDL (Apple Wireless Direct Link, Apple’s proprietary protocol), to embrace the WiFi Alliance’s WiFi Aware standard as its replacement.
The beginning of something bigger? Samsung is one of the main partners from Google and one of the companies that is helping the most with the development of Android. For this reason, it is common to see how they are the first to implement exclusive Pixel innovations, more years of updates or, in this case, AirDrop.
The big question is how long it will take the rest of the manufacturers to ensure that their phones can send and receive files to devices with iOS 26 through Quick Share and AirDrop.
Yes, but. At the moment, this functionality is only possible if we activate the “everyone for 10 minutes” mode of AirDrop, being closed to the “contacts only” mode with which we can transfer files without having to constantly go to the phone settings.
Google has been open to collaborating with Apple to enable full connectionalthough there is no news about it from the second company.
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