Google and Apple have been battling it out with each other for quite a while. While both companies paying for this both in and out of the courtroom, users of both platforms are still happily buying iPhones and iPads, as well as Android devices. In fact, it’s not that uncommon to see a single user owning devices with different, competing operating systems.

Devices with the same OS can easily share content like messages, contacts, and photos without hassle. But sharing files between Apple and Google products is a bit of a challenge. Google wants to put an end of this situation, and has reportedly been working on a solution named Copresence. If rumors are to be believed, Google Copresence is a technology that allows Android devices to communicate with nearby iOS devices in multiple ways in order to exchange the photos, contacts, messages, and so on. Copresence might be considered a cross-platform version of Android Beam.

An early glimpse indicates that devices might be communicating with each other without the use of cloud services, but rather though WiFi of WiFi direct. It’s uncertain when the technology shall become available to the public, but Google seems to be doing everything to get it out as fast as possible.

There are some instances in the Google Play Services APK that show devices using different OS (e.g. the iPhone-like circular home button) exchange media files. Images are not all, since there are some API changes in Chrome and registered patents related to the Copresence functionality. The ability to easily exchange files between Apple and Google products is a good thing, and we should be cheering for Google for being mature enough to make this happen.




Source http://www.xda-developers.com/android/google-copresence-android-beam/

Nairaland

good idea