Recently, a new patent from Apple Inc. has attracted everyone's attention. The patent is titled "Optical Structure in a Directional Free-Space Optical Communication System for Portable Electronic Devices". While there is no explicit mention of Li-Fi (Visible Light Communication) in the patent documents, it is clear from the description that Apple is considering using Li-Fi technology for data transmission with its AirDrop feature as an alternative to traditional Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The advantages of this technology are improved data transfer rates, privacy and security, and it is suitable for Apple devices such as iPhone, iPad, Mac, as well as aviation, marine, submarine or land vehicle control devices.
Source: Apple's official website).
Speaking of AirDrop, Apple released iOS 7 at the WWDC developer conference in 2013, and AirDrop also officially landed on the iPhone. With no Apple ID, pairing, network, or data, users can transfer files between friends at any time. AirDrop was almost unrivaled in that era, known for its fast transmission and smooth experience, and became one of the important symbols of the apple ecology in the hearts of fruit fans, heralding a bright future of connectivity.
Source: Apple's official website).
With the growth of iPhone usage around the world, AirDrop, a file transfer method that does not require authentication and has a very low threshold, has begun to expose privacy and security issues. Hackers are increasingly using AirDrop to obtain users' private data, and while Apple, as an industry leader, has been patching holes in AirDrop's protocol, its security issues still don't seem to be fundamentally resolved.
And one of AirDrop's default settings raises serious problems. Apple initially set AirDrop to be open to everyone by default in order to provide an inductive experience, which led to a new type of mass harassment – cyberflyers . Apple quickly updated iOS 16Version 2 completely turned off AirDrop's default open setting for everyone, and changed it to automatically turn off after 10 minutes, so as to prevent the harassment from continuing to spread.
Source: Apple's official website).
In the latest iOS 17 update, AirDrop introduced the NameDrop feature, which enables two iPhones to touch to complete the file transfer. But as time went on, users began to generally report that AirDrop had become unstable, and this negative review quickly spread in communities such as Reddit, Quora, etc., and many people noticed that AirDrop's performance was no longer as reliable as it used to be.
Source: Apple's official website).
Maybe it's because users can hear complaints about AirDrop almost all over the world, and with the increase of iPhone series models, plus different iOS versions, different Bluetooth, Wi-Fi protocols, the hardware combination is extremely complex, not to mention the iPad and MacBook series running macOS. Engineers need to work on new features while ensuring compatibility with older devices, which makes AirDrop's stability even more fragile in this complex environment. The traditional Bluetooth and Wi-Fi transmission methods can no longer achieve the non-inductive experience that Apple originally claimed, and this time Apple uses the latest Li-Fi technology to realize the AirDrop function, can users re-experience the original AirDrop non-inductive transmission?
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