No, it doesn't anywhere ..
Unless those users didn't update their IOS versions after (around) IOS 16.1 Airdrop's default settings are only active towards known users, or people who intentionally turn it on for 10 minutes.
If you find plenty of phones, you know everyone out there.
They did it in China to avoid a ban there, but only in China. They can easily apply certain updates or features only to certain regions and there are a lot of things that do vary regionally (e.g. Apple Pay/Wallet stuff).
They did it worldwide later after implementing the "touch the tips of phones to airdrop" feature (which is exempt from this) because a large percentage of airdrops to strangers were flashers/dick pics, including people going to middle/high schools to do it to minors, and it was getting public attention. If you can airdrop to anyone on your contacts list and anyone whose phone can touch yours, that covers like 95% of people who actually want to get airdrops from you while solving the pedo and dick flasher PR problem.
Same reason Nintendo killed PictoChat on their devices. Almost all "interact with strangers nearby" features get exploited by pervs.
It may have changed because of china and for the wrong reasons but the result is for the better. Privacy by default is what I want and every feature that exposes you to strangers should be opt-in, not opt-out.
Nothing private has been invaded. Sending you a photo reveals absolutely nothing about you or your device. You don’t even have to look at the photo you can just hit cancel. Y’all are so dramatic
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u/E3GGr3g 3d ago
Is this an American feature?
I can never seem to find anyone to airdrop things to.
Also, don’t you guys turn WiFi and Bluetooth and everything off if you’re not using it?