Many years ago, before the arrival of WhatsApp and many other applications, to share files we relied on Bluetooth. The problem is that it is not, or at least it was not in the past, as secure as other technologies. For that reason, in theory, companies like Apple restricted it from the beginning to share, not to make certain connections. The apple company launched an alternative that it called AirDrop and that is based on WiFi, and Google has created Nearby sharing which promises to work in a very similar way.
Android users looked askance at Apple's feature and wondered why Google didn't have anything like it for them. So, earlier this year, the company of the most used search engine on the planet presented (via xde-developers.com) Nearby Sharing, something that many thought would work only for Google devices, more specifically between Android devices. But this didn't make a lot of sense, starting with the company developing Chrome OS and ending because, well, Google really likes to know how we move.
Nearby Sharing, an AirDrop to dominate them all
Considering the above, it is not surprising that the company plans for its Nearby Sharing to be available for everyone, which includes Windows users, macOS, their Chrome OS and Android and for us, Linux users. At first, no Apple operating system based on iOS has been mentioned (which is iOS -as of Tuesday it could be renamed iPhoneOS-, iPadOS, tvOS and watchOS) but, if Apple does not put restrictions, it should also be compatible sooner or later.
The downside is that Nearby Sharing still not working. It has appeared in the latest version of Chrome OS for developers (Canary) and can be accessed from chrome :/ / flags. Now it offers us the option to activate Nearby Sharing for «share content between Mac, Windows, Linux and Chrome OS devices«. Therefore, the only question is whether it will be compatible with Apple mobile devices; the rest of the systems will be.
As soon as it is released, it remains to be seen how it works. Anyone who has tried Apple's AirDrop knows perfectly well that it works efficiently and quickly, something that we cannot say about other options such as sharedrop, which also pretends to work like Apple's proposal, but cannot compete in terms of speed. If Google manages to implement it well, it will surely become the best option in the world to share files with nearby devices ... even if iOS was left out.