iOS 7 is only a week away from being revealed to the world at WWDC 2013 so naturally the rumours are flying in thick and fast. The latest expectation of iOS 7 to showcase with the new and improved Jony Ive inspired flat design is a feature most OSX users will be familiar with called AirDrop.
AirDrop – ing to iOS 7?
AirDrop is something that has been knocking around for a while as a feature supposedly being introduced with earlier versions of iOS but it never surfaced. Now, according to new media reports, people familiar with the software (whatever that means) have revealed that Apple are currently testing iOS 7 internally and that build includes the AirDrop functionality.
AirDrop is a WiFi sharing feature that allows devices on the same network to share files wirelessly by simply dragging and dropping. Think of it as a local dropbox, and it works very well. The sharing service will work between two iOS devices, and probably between iOS and OSX, making it easier for users to transfer files between devices such as photographs or documents, without the need for iTunes involvement.
While iCloud allows for photo sharing with the same Apple ID, AirDrop is not tied to a single user account, so files, images, and media can be transferred freely without any restrictions between devices. Whether Apple decide to implement some restrictions on the iOS version of AirDrop is another question entirely.
We’ve seen functionality built into mobile devices for a while now, with Samsung having their own proprietary method of sharing files between their Galaxy range of devices, so Apple is really playing catch up porting this feature to iOS – something that could have been done when introduced to the Mac back in 2011 with OSX Lion.
Nevertheless, if Apple do introduce AirDrop to iOS next week at WWDC 2013, it will definitely be a welcomed addition to the iOS 7 functionality.