Comment by neilalexander

> Wow, so Apple was ahead of Amazon's Sidewalk with AWDL.

Not exactly. The wording in the article implies that AWDL forms some kind of multi-hop network topology, but it doesn’t - it just enables nearby devices to communicate with each other directly at Wi-Fi speeds without the burden of pairing (like Wi-Fi Direct) or being associated with the same Wi-Fi network.

This is used not just in AirDrop but also in the Multipeer Connectivity Framework, AirPlay 2 and the Continuity framework. The standard discovery mechanism for these services is mDNS over AWDL, so for a device to browse for or advertise these services, it needs to be aware of other nearby AWDL neighbours first. (For example, you can browse for and discover other nearby AirDrop devices even if you don’t allow incoming AirDrop enabled yourself.)

It’s also worth noting that Apple devices very strictly do not send or receive AWDL traffic when they are locked/asleep, and will often even stop listening on the AWDL social channels when there are no services being advertised or in use.