Last week, Google surprised the tech world when it [1]announced AirDrop support on Pixel 10 devices -- all without Apple's involvement. "While it initially seemed like this was a rogue move made by Google to coerce Apple into another boundary-breaking decision, it might actually be part of the repercussions that also led to USB-C on iPhone and the adoption of RCS," reports 9to5Google. From a report:

> As reported by [2]Ars Technica , the answer to this week's mysterious Quick Share upgrade [3]lies in the EU's interoperability requirements designed for the DMA . The ruling out of the European Commission pushed Apple to begin supporting interoperable wireless standards beginning with this year's set of OS upgrades, replacing the previous proprietary standard the company used to power its various Continuity features. That forced Apple to add support for the Wi-Fi Alliance's Wi-Fi Aware standard of multi-directional file sharing, at the cost of completely phasing out its previous walled-in protocol.



[1] https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/11/20/1732245/you-can-finally-airdrop-files-between-android-and-iphone-starting-with-pixel-10

[2] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/11/the-eu-made-apple-adopt-new-wi-fi-standards-and-now-android-can-support-airdrop/

[3] https://9to5google.com/2025/11/21/googles-airdrop-support-for-pixel-10-likely-exists-because-of-the-eus-apple-ruling/