Comment by neilalexander
1 day ago
They didn't. Apple contributed the core logic to the Wi-Fi Alliance to build Wi-Fi Aware, which they now also support.
1 day ago
They didn't. Apple contributed the core logic to the Wi-Fi Alliance to build Wi-Fi Aware, which they now also support.
Interestingly, it still took the EU to force them to actually adopt it (and open it up for apps to use) in iOS 26.
PSA:
* https://www.wi-fi.org/wi-fi-aware-resources
* https://developer.apple.com/documentation/WiFiAware
* https://developer.android.com/develop/connectivity/wifi/wifi...
Apple docs say iOS 26/macOS 26, that's so brand new that no apps are using it right now, will have to check that again in a few years.
Kind of. When I looked, they added the api for devs to use on iOS, but it isn’t on macOS yet, and nothing uses it as far as I could see.
It’s a future promising tech though. A much better version of Wi-Fi Direct.
So, should there be apps that use it to transfer files between iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac without requiring them to be on the same network?
Google's QuickShare contains a reverse-engineered AWDL implementation that works on Pixel and a few other phones.
As for WiFi NAN: support for it seems rather limited outside of iOS and Android. From what I can tell the feature is barely tested on Linux and I can't find any generic Windows APIs for it either.
No WiFi cards for pcs support it.
That's not quite accurate, I don't think.
I've definitely used STA and AP modes concurrently on my Windows laptop with the operating system's built-in internet connection sharing function to help troubleshoot a problem in the field.
That was around a decade ago. It didn't take any extra effort on my part; I just told it to do the thing, and then it did that thing.
Researched this for a bit: there is some hardware for PCI supporting it, but Windows 10/11 not, and Linux is still work in progress, so no real support on OS level, only for some iOS/Android devices.
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it might be interesting to use unused or extra wifi cards to support this. My pc motherboard has both wifi and ethernet and I only use the ethernet. That card does absolutely nothing at all.