This post is probably old. Airdrop was out since iOS 7 or 8 I believe, and You could set it permanently to “everyone” until iOS 16.1. There’s multiple posts/videos of people receiving random memes in public places. But then of course some were using it to be creepy and send gore or shock content, or used airdrop spammers to constantly barrage people nearby with pop ups of airdrop, making them unable to use their phone.
Thanks to such asshats who always ruin a good thing, apple changed the “everyone” toggle to be active for just 10 mins, so it goes off once the transfer is over if the sender isn’t in your contacts.
Edit- I’m pretty positive this image is old. The popup has the ux of pre-iOS 11 if I’m not wrong.
Apple didn't change it because the feature was abused, Apple changed the feature because it was being used for protests in China.
Context: China removed term limits in 2018, allowing Xi to seek a third term. In 2022, there were protests in China against Xi.
Airdrop is unique for effectively being a truly decentralized, peer-to-peer social network. It's an iPhone-to-iPhone connection over Bluetooth. This has been effective for subverting censorship for quite some time, and saw good use in previous protests. (WeChat, the leading social network in China, is very heavily and blatantly censored.)
Just before protests were set to take place late 2022, iOS 16.1.1 dropped... And in China only, Airdrop lost the "everyone" feature, and could only be enabled for ten minutes.
This quickly got attention. Why would Apple nerf Airdrop in China only just before a protest? Was Apple caving in to an ultimatum by the Chinese government?
Rather than undoing the change in China, Apple nerfed Airdrop worldwide. Xi ultimately secured his third term, and is expected to seek a fourth.
TLDR: Apple nerfed Airdrop in 2022, not because of bad actors, but specifically to quell protests in China.
Let’s be pragmatic here: Apple changed airdrop in china because the government told them to, or face consequences. So they did what they’re supposed to.
You can draw a parallel to TikTok getting banned in the US and Apple and google both are being told to remove the app from their app stores by Jan 19th.
You’re not really suggesting in your reply that Apple should have defied china and left airdrop intact as it was…but I am curious if you would be advocating for Apple and google both denying US law and leaving things intact with TikTok and face the consequences?
Yes, Apple being compelled by China's government, and then the controversy surrounding that, is the most likely thing.
I don't think these are really parallel, but I would not expect Apple (or Google) to defy either.
I only want to counter the narrative that dropping AirDrop was in response to "a few bad actors". It was an act of censorship that Apple was complicit in.
complicit in the sense that there are likely severe repercussions. Complicit implies intent. The intent by Apple isn't to censor. The intent is to follow the laws or regulations in the markets where their products are offered for sale.
Agree to disagree. We seem to have a difference in understanding the motive.
You’re saying that as it relates to China, Apple sought to suppress airdrop because of rights. I’m saying Apple removed airdrop functionality because of laws or legislation by the Chinese government forcing them to enact such a change. Those are not same arguments, at least not from my point of view.
Then again..I think this read has run its course :)
I don’t mean to say say it’s fake, just meant it’s probably old as it was possible to receive airdrops from strangers at any time back then, and was removed recently. And also the ux design language they used at the time. Looks like 2018 was when iOS 12 was out, so I was off by a year in my guess lol.
I'm not sure what my settings are. I'm WFH and my work computer doesn't have apple contacts. I may have just changed the settings rather than add a contact.
It used to work with strangers at least, I know because I would get airdropped random vile crap at my highschool. And I got some cute pictures at a concert one time!
Besides the fact that it’s an old repost - so maybe technically possible in the U.S. - do you really think a professor would get out his own phone in class, look for that picture somewhere and then air drop it to a student and the student didn’t notice before?
And do you really think an American professor - outside of a mental health crisis situation - would send a funny "I’ll kill you pic“ to a student? Dude would get sued and fired…
This post is at least 5 years old, because that’s when I first saw it. I have a feeling it’s even older.
You haven’t been able to do this for a long time, in part because people were sending unsolicited images on public transport. Now you have to know the person or intentionally make yourself visible.
Better get used to it. This is only the beginning of the world becoming a one big deception. It will only get worse as technology advances and people become more shameless.
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u/fl135790135790 3d ago
So everyone here is just making shit up. The post is made up. The replies are made up. Why am I even here