Apple users enjoy the conveniences of AirDrop and AirPlay to share files between devices or stream content to connected displays. Since Android is an open ecosystem, it’s much more challenging to have a standardized system that works universally. However, Google recently invested efforts inNearby Share for Android, even enabling filesharing with Windows devices. Now, Google has announced a complete rebranding of the feature, improved in collaboration with Samsung.
Nearby Share has been kicking around since 2020, and it is great for sending files and folders between Android devices and computers. The transfers are speedy if the devices are on the same Wi-Fi network, and thefolder structures remain untouchedtoo. Such a tool greatly helps the versatility of Android devices. However, big OEMs who invest considerable resources in developing custom Android skins also go the extra mile like Samsung did with its Quick Share tool. Late last year, wereported on signssuggesting Google is rebranding Nearby Share to match Samsung’s Quick Share.
Today, it’s all official — atCES 2024, Google announced that Quick Share integrates the best of both utilities, and it works across the Android ecosystem. You can also use this system toshare content with Chromebooks, while Google works with PC makers, including LG, to pre-install the Quick Share app on Windows PCs.
A rebranding means everything displaying Nearby Share branding today will soon read Quick Share, instead, and that includes the share sheet in most apps, notifications from the service, its Settings page, and Quick Settings tile. However, functional changes should be subtle in practice, and sharing files between your devices should feel just as seamless. Google reassures users that privacy settings which define the visibility of your device are here to stay, unchanged from the Nearby Share days. The biggest change may show on Samsung phones, where individual options for Nearby Share and Quick Share are consolidated into one tool.
We are disappointed Google is already rebranding a relatively new tool, because it will take some getting used to, just like we’re still getting the hang of writing “2024” instead of “2023” everywhere. That said, this is typical behavior we have seen from the company, like when itrebranded Hangouts Meet to Meet,combined Meet and Duo, oroutright killedseveral services in 2022.
The Nearby Share rebrand to Quick Share should start reaching end-users in February, Google says. However, specific dates or even ambiguous timelines for when the rollout will be complete are still anyone’s best guess. We could hear more atSamsung’s Galaxy Unpacked eventlater this month, though.
