Practical iOS 7: understand, use and master AirDrop on iPhone and iPad

WhileWe have
talked about Facetime audioyesterday, today is another new feature of iOS7
which is in the spotlight: Airdrop.

Mac users already know the feature that's coming now
on iOS. Practical, simple to use, it is clear that it isand
great way to share filesand more between iPhone,
iPad et iPod touch.

How does it work? How to activate it or
disable ? On which devices is this possible? All
answers below:

What is AirDrop?

To put it very simply, AirDrop is a data exchange system that
allows two compatible devices located nearby to share
fichiers via WiFi ou Bluetooth.

In practice, this means, for example, that two iPhone owners located
in the same room can easily exchange photos wirelessly and above all
without having to go through iMessages or emails. Obviously, AirDrop does not
works with a friend 2 or three blocks from you.

It works perfectly and simply without having to configure anything
or almost. Before continuing, let's seedevices that
are compatible.

Unsurprisingly, only recent models support AirDrop. This is the case
of theiPhone 5, 5c and 5s, iPod touch 5, iPad 4 and iPad
mini.That's all. Small clarification,to work, AirDrop
needs an iCloud account. Although this may seem surprising, it is
there only to identify the user.

What to share with AirDrop?

If exchanging files is practical, you still need to know what it is
possible to redeem via AirDrop. Here again, it’s quite simple, here it is
list :

photos and videos
applications via l’App Store
liens web via Safari
contacts
locations via Maps

How does it work?

As is often the case, Apple wanted to make its functionality as simple and
transparent as possible and the least we can say is that with AirDrop,
the bet is successful and as we like to hear in the keynotes: 'it
works’.

Let's start by checking if AirDrop is turned on in your home. For that,
nothing could be simpler, just bring up the control center with a swipe
from the bottom to the top of the screen. If AirDrop is grayed out then it is turned off, a
simple press of the button displays the drop-down menu and chooses whether
AirDrop is visible to everyone, only to contacts or turned off. That's all
what there is to do.

Everything then happens in the sharing menu of the different
applications. Let’s take the example of Safari and a random web page…

To share this page with one of your friends, simply click on
the share icon right at the bottom of the screen. Whatever the application,
the icon is always the same.

The sharing menu is then displayed and AirDrop automatically detects the
devices within range by displaying a small ball per contact. It is enough
to press the little ball to start sharing. Whoever receives the
link to the web page will only have to accept the sending and will automatically be
sent to the appropriate app, in this case Safari.

Whether it's photos, videos, or anything else,
operation is always the same.

AirDrop to do what?

As I said above, AirDrop allows you to send files between iPhone,
iPad and iPod touch compatible. If the Mac also has a function
AirDrop, it is not yet possible to communicate between iOS and OSX via
AirDrop. Hopefully this becomes possible with the next version of OSX
Maverick which should be released soon. AirDrop would only become more
powerful !