Android Quick Share on the Pixel 10 Can Now Directly Connect With Apple AirDrop
Google bridges iOS and Android with seamless, secure two-way file transfers rolling out first to its latest phones.
Summary
- Android’s Quick Share now works directly with Apple’s AirDrop for seamless file transfers
- The feature, currently exclusive to the Pixel 10 lineup, allows two-way sharing when AirDrop is set to “Everyone for 10 minutes”
- Google built the secure, peer-to-peer link to solve “mixed-group friction,” with plans for wider Android expansion.
Google just cracked one of tech’s most annoying pain points. Android’s Quick Share now talks directly to Apple’s AirDrop, letting Pixel 10 owners beam photos, videos and files straight to nearby iPhones, iPads and Macs with no third‑party apps or cables.
The move starts with the full Pixel 10 lineup and uses AirDrop’s “Everyone for 10 minutes” mode. Flip that on in iOS, hit Quick Share on Pixel, pick the Apple device, and the transfer lands as a standard AirDrop request on the other side. This is true two-way sharing. iPhone, iPad and Mac users can also AirDrop back to a Pixel 10 as long as the Android side is set to be discoverable or in Receive mode, effectively turning Apple’s once-closed lane into a shared wireless expressway.
Google is framing it as a direct answer to years of mixed-group friction – the moment when the Android friend got left out of the AirDrop dump after a night out. The company says it built the experience so “sharing should just work” across ecosystems “sharing should just work”.
Under the hood, the interoperability runs over a direct peer‑to‑peer link, not some sketchy relay. Google stresses it was “built with security at its core” and vetted by independent security experts via a dedicated security deep dive.
For now this is a Pixel 10 flex only, but Google makes it clear this is “just the first step” before expanding to more Android hardware. Think of it as the latest crack in the walled gardens, following moves like RCS on iPhone and cross‑platform tracker alerts.
