@liaizon a nearby share app for macOS, a very sloppy...

@liaizon a nearby share app for macOS, a very sloppy one, as a proof of concept because it's 2021 and we as a humanity still haven't figured out sending files between devices. Just today got it to the point where it was able to complete the (ridiculously complicated) protocol and accept a file from Android.

Here's a screenshot about successfully sending a screenshot through nearby share, sent through nearby share:

Like 30 Apr 2021 at 22:24 | Open on mastodon.social

3 comments

Gregory

@liaizon the protocol isn't quite public, had to reverse engineer it from decompiled play services apk and Chromium sources. And, yes, it's bad. It's 5 layers of protobuf serialization bad.

30 Apr 2021 at 22:27 | Open on mastodon.social

wakest ⁂

@grishka so you wrote a client app for macOS so it shows up natively in Androids share sheet?

30 Apr 2021 at 22:28 | Open on social.wake.st

Gregory

@liaizon yes. Nearby share is Google's (veeery late) response to AirDrop. It currently only works between Android devices.

(actually it's a server in terms of the protocol — the client initiates the transfer and sends files, the server accepts them)

30 Apr 2021 at 22:33 | Open on mastodon.social

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