Pixel 10 is Getting AirDrop Support - DTNS 5151

0:00This is the Daily Tech News for Friday, November 21st, 2025. We tell you what you need to know, give you some of the important context there, and help each other understand. Today, Andy Beach tells us about Warner Music's new AI deal. And Apple AirDrop is now on Google Pixel devices, but for how long? I'm Jason Howell. I'm Jen Cutter. Let's start with what you need to know with a big story. pixel 10 users can now send files seamlessly to apple devices using airdrop as a pixel 10 pro user owner whatever you want to call me i just hope it stays that way because sometimes these things happen and then you know apple gets in there later they're like what you figured that out no and removes it hoping it stays there so what is going on here well google is rolling out a surprise software update if you have a pixel 10 family device which i do i'm running my software update right now that introduces quick share interoperability with Apple's airdrop.

1:01And so interestingly, this feature was actually created without Apple's involvement. In fact, I don't think Apple's even commented on this yet. The feature allows the Pixel 10 Pro that I have and other Pixel 10s in the family to transfer photos, videos, and other file types to iPhones, iPads, and Macs, given that the Apple device on the other side is set to be visible to all in the settings. Apple users will receive a request for that transfer. It's going to mirror what you're used to seeing when any normal Apple device sends files using the AirDrop protocol. And then, yes, in the other direction, Apple users can send files to those Pixel devices with the new update in place on the receiving end.

1:45So seemingly, airdrop, quick share, interoperability. It's weird that we're talking about this because I swear it was only a couple of weeks ago that we brought this up on the Android Faithful podcast as a, yeah, it'll be a cold day in hell when that happens. And yet two weeks later, here it is. Google insists this is not a workaround. They say the connection is truly peer-to-peer. No data shared with Google in the process. You don't have to worry about Google getting its grubby hands on that data. Michal Rahman, one of my co-hosts on Android Faithful, but also writes for Android Authority. He wrote a piece on Android Authority that details how Pixel 10 users can get this up and running.

2:24It involves having a new Quick Share extension app installed in your device, which only comes by way of an over-the-air update to PlaySystem. Google plans to expand this compatibility to other devices sometime down the line. So I ask you, Jen, is AirDrop a feature you use? Well, wait a minute. Do you have Android or iPhone? I always just kind of assume iPhone. Yeah. No, I have iPhone, but all my PCs right now are Windows and Linux. So I am very happy for the people this helps, even though I have to do all of the annoying workarounds where like I got to put stuff in Google Drive or I'm trying to set up Obsidian to use that or Dropbox or OneDrive.

3:03So I am very happy for the people this is going to make some things kind of seamless for. Yeah, it's been interesting to me because AirDrop, I've always seen as this technology that Apple does really well, right? Like the idea of sharing files between your devices and not just between phones, but between all different platforms, it seems like a no-brainer, like, oh, that should be easy, that should be doable. And because Apple has such a tight ecosystem, they've created this system, as they often do, that is pretty low friction, you know, or it just makes sense, I think, to a lot of people versus others.

3:42Like I can say for Android, you know, Quick Share is definitely an improvement. Google's, you know, updated its kind of file sharing protocol in the last, I'd say, year, year and a half to Quick Share. And it's better than it was. But there's still kind of this like you got to know it exists in order to use it. And I just I don't go to it nearly as much as I know, like people in my life who are iOS users who aren't tech technology savvy necessarily. They know what AirDrop is and they use it. And I'm always wondering, like, well, why isn't that the case on Android? And part of the reason, you know, I think it's just because there's that Android, Apple, iOS kind of division where a lot of people, at least here in the U.S., do have iOS devices and do have Apple devices.

4:26And so as an Android user, we're kind of blocked off from that. So it's not part of our kind of go-to to expect that we could do it, if that makes sense. Well, I remember when AirDrop was like new-ish, that they were like a bunch of zero days and all that stuff that you had to be aware of. And I used to do talks in schools about tech and stuff. And yeah, you had to have AirDrop off or you were going to be sent just the world's most disturbing things. Because kids will be kids. Same with like airports and stuff. I was like, no, I'm just going to keep AirDrop all of the time and use other things.

4:59But like for people, for families that use different kinds of phones, especially if Google does actually expand this capability without Apple smacking them down, this is going to be useful for so many people. Yeah. Yeah. I think that is the real big question here is what will Apple's response be to this? Today, you know, the updates seem to be going out. Like I said, I went into my settings to get an update, but I haven't tested it because I think it's still downloading and blah, blah, blah. They take time, I guess. Oh, I can restart now. OK, I'll restart now. But and so yesterday, Google had kind of mentioned that that they had figured this out and that they they're going to start rolling it out.

5:42Today, we're starting to get the rollout. And I do wonder at what point Apple weighs in on this. There's been a large conversation, especially with the RCS and messaging kind of thing that's been going back and forth for a number of years now. Now it's kind of finally settled down. We can communicate cross-device in those rich ways. And I think a large part of Apple's acquiescence in this has to do with, you know, the friction that they're running into when it comes to anti-competitiveness in both U.S. cases and cases overseas. I think this is part of that. I think that's why Google was able to kind of work this in.

6:23But I do wonder if Apple looks at, like, how it's being implemented and says, oh, wait a minute, you can't do it that way because, you know, I don't know, our rules or our terms of service or whatever. Or I'm wondering if they're going to come up with a way to say, at Google, you did it wrong. No, thank you. Yeah. And there's always a worry about, you know, the EU says, like, yes, this is good. Yes, this is the thing you have to do. And then it's only available in the EU. Yeah, right. Now, would this be a phone seller to you if you didn't already have the Pixel 10s? Like, let's say they just say, like, oh, no, it doesn't work on anything else.

6:58Too bad. So sad. If you want it, you've got to upgrade to our phone. Hmm. Like, man, questions like that are so hard for me because I've been on Android literally since day one of my smartphone experience back in 2010. So it's really hard for me to know if that would be enough to pull me over. But I will say, I mean, I think it's an aggregate sort of thing, right? Like the messaging thing was a really big barrier, I think, for a lot of people. It really diminished the experience of conversing with their friends with the whole iMessage lockout, let's say, at least here in the U.S. I know people outside of the U.S.

7:37are screaming like, yeah, we don't give a care. You know, we don't care about SMS, you know, expansion, blah, blah, blah. But here in the U.S., it's a big deal for whatever reason. And they figured that out. Did that on its own motivate people to switch? I'm sure there's a small percentage of people. This on its own, would it motivate people to switch or to be less prohibitive around the idea of exploring the idea of being on the other platform? I'm sure there's some people that that might speak to. I bet it's a small percentage, but all of it in aggregate makes it more possible, makes it less painful to consider being on the other side.

8:16And I think I think that's the real value is like, OK, you know, we're facing less of those like hard in the sand, you know, drawn line in the sand barriers than we were before. They're not all gone, but they're lessening, let's say. Yeah, well, I actually have an example. My mom is on Android and she for texting, it drove her nuts that group chats would break with her. And so she had me teach her about iPhones and stuff. And then once they fixed the fact that you would have a group chat and it works and she doesn't get emojis separate anymore, which for some reason made her really mad. She stayed on Android because now she doesn't have to switch.

8:54She's also learning how to use WhatsApp and stuff, which is very helpful because she had an iPad where she could use FaceTime on. But now that she understands that you can kind of video chat anywhere now, she's really happy staying on Android. Well, there you go. See, peace is possible. DTNS is made possible by you, the listener. Thanks to Chris Zaragoza, Mike Akins, Norm Fizikas, and Rachel Wendt-Channey. Right on. Thank you, folks. Thanks for keeping us in business. There's more we need to know today. Let's get to the briefs. Microsoft is rolling out its Xbox Ally X-inspired full-screen experience to all Windows 11 handhelds.

9:38Starting today, November 21st, users of those handhelds get a touch and controller-friendly launcher that's designed specifically for handheld PCs with a console-like interface instead of a Windows desktop experience. It bundles games from Steam, the Epic Game Store, and has easy access to Game Pass. Microsoft says that the experience will soon expand to more Windows 11 PC form factors through Xbox and Insider programs. so not not the resident gamer i'm not necessarily a hardcore gamer these days but i can totally understand the value of something like this like who wants to maneuver a windows 11 uh desktop environment on a tiny little handheld screen which you know they're they can be reasonably large but they're not as large as like a desktop screen you know and and i think the the os experience is often designed for that larger screen.

10:33Squishing it onto the smaller screen makes it possible, like it's usable-ish, but this just makes a lot more sense. Yeah, and Windows 11 wants to be everywhere as aggressively as possible, I say, as a Windows 10 user. Yeah, right. But there are other options, like not every handheld is going to want this because SteamOS is doing pretty great, And then even like SteamOS on PC for people who plug into a TV and use big picture mode. Pretty solid. So they have a lot of work to do to win over the gamers because that launch of the Ally was rough. Well, there you go. Perplexity has launched its AI browser.

11:18That's the Comet AI browser for Android, right? This came out, I don't know, a number of months ago, and I've been using it since pretty much day one for certain tasks. And now it's on Android, so I'm pretty excited about that. So it's bringing the distinction or carrying the distinction, rather, of being one of the only AI-centric browsers for mobile. And don't yell at me about that statement. Like, this is just kind of reported on. And I know there are browsers that do AI things, but I think this is really one of the made for and with and entirely focused on AI browser without, you know, kind of throwing in extensions and that sort of stuff.

11:56That's all that really means. It has some of the features found in its desktop app, including in tab AI assistance and context voice mode for chatting about the contents of your web apps. And then Perplexity expects to bring more features over from his desktop app in the coming weeks. So, you know, browser staples, which I'm kind of surprised they're not there already, like History and Bookmark Sync, that might be coming soon. Also planning to bring fully agentic voice mode update, eventually a built-in password manager, though you can use your own password manager if you want. It's not going to bar you from doing that.

12:32And then, of course, iOS users can expect the browser to hit the app store soon. no date has been shared for that but um i've installed it i i just installed it you know leading up to this show so i haven't had any time to really play around with it to know kind of like okay how is it is it any good but i'm curious to play around with it and see what do you think about like these these like ai slash agentic browsers right now and having that on a mobile versus like a desktop where you can really spread out uh i am still the curmudgeon who does not use them. And then even for stuff like DuckDuckGo, which was super upfront about it, they said, hey, do you want the stuff on or off?

13:10And I said off. And then it didn't bug me about it again. So I appreciate that. But since you use it, what feature on the desktop would assist you most on your phone that you're excited to play with after the show? Well, I think the thing that I'm curious about testing out and to see if it's possible is on the browser, one of the really nice features is that if I have five tabs open, I can throw a prompt in there and say, consider all the tabs that are open right now and tell me this about them all. What's similar between them? Or how do all of these tabs together fill out a bigger, more comprehensive picture of this topic versus a single story written by someone.

13:55You know what I mean? Go through these things and just check out all the tabs and tell me what you find. And that's the thing that I use perplexity for a lot. I find that to be very useful instead of like copy and pasting all the copy, the text into like a text document or into the chat interface. You know, there's a lot of setup there versus just I'm browsing the web. I've got five tabs open and I want to know about all these things in one prompt. I'm curious to know what that experience is on mobile, or is that something that is less likely to be needed on mobile, right? Because on desktop, we're used to spreading out.

14:32I've got 25 tabs open on my Chrome. It's ugly to look at, but that's just how I work when I'm on desktop, and that's not how I work when I'm on mobile. So maybe it's different needs. I have, okay, I am the worst with this and I will own it. I have about 900 tabs in my Firefox, right now because I am working on something and I have 60 tabs on my Firefox on mobile, which I am shocked works so well, but I had to turn off the Firefox feature where it just puts things to inactive tabs. I'm like, no, I actually need these. Please leave them open. So I know that like I'm the person who should be using this stuff, but I haven't yet.

15:09So we'll see how it goes if I finally switch. Yeah. Wow. That's, that's intense. No, thank you. Apple and artist Bailey Hikawa have unveiled a limited edition MagSafe iPhone grip and stand that is engineered specifically for accessibility. It's a chunky, soft-touch silicone accessory that snaps on magnetically and offers both vertical and horizontal use. The design was shaped by direct feedback from people with disabilities affecting hand control and strength. And it's designed to make holding the phone and keeping it stable easier for more users. Hikawa also notes that this is only the beginning of bringing more adaptive products to market.

15:54The Hikawa phone grip and stand is available as a limited edition item in the Apple Store now for$69.95, and I absolutely love the look of it. I mean, this is a chunky beast. It's almost like I had a 3D printer and I 3D printed this thing, and what do you know, I got it to stick to the back of my phone. Yeah, it's very neat. I've never seen anything like it. Let's just say that. because I use one of those, you know, those little pop things that pop out on the back of your phone so you can hold it. So I have one of those, but it turns out it's really terrible as a stand. So I ended up buying a separate thing that I can use as a stand for vertical and horizontal.

16:33And I love that this is soft. Like I, I look at the pictures and I'm like, I want to touch it. I need to know what kind of texture this is. It looks so cool. My only problem with it for me for shoving it in, you know, the clothing that has women's pockets is like, where would I put this otherwise? I kind of wish it compressed, but also fully understand why it does not compress. Yeah, absolutely. That, that I think is, you know, and it's clearly it's, it's not designed for everyday, every person use. It really is designed for a very specific use, I think, for people who have difficulties with hand control and hand grip and everything.

17:13It's meant to be big and chunky. It gives it a lot more surface area and the large hole that you can slide your finger through so that it holds it in place. And there's no fiddling with the little pop-out thing that accidentally pops back in right at the moment you're trying to put it on your hand or whatever the case may be this thing takes up a lot of space that silicone is probably uh probably kind of frictiony and it's kind of sticky and everything so i i don't think if you have this on your phone you're throwing your phone in the pocket you know you probably have a different place for it like i don't know how you would fit this in your in your pocket just doesn't seem to compute like well i could throw it in a purse but i don't carry one often enough but more adaptive products coming to market.

17:59I'm excited to see this collaboration in the future. Yeah, no, I think it's great. I definitely not saying any of that to denigrate the coolness of this product because it's not for me. There's probably some people who need something like this who are looking at this and going, wow, they read my mind. This is exactly what I need. So bravo for that. Foxconn, also known aka as Hanhai Precision Industry Company, by the way, has announced plans to invest$1 to$5 billion to expand its U.S. manufacturing presence. They're addressing the needs of major AI players, you know, NVIDIA, of course, and then OpenAI.

18:39And speaking of OpenAI, there's a new partnership that they announced with OpenAI, where the company is working to design and build its next generation servers for AI data centers. They will co-design server racks and focus on scaling production across the U.S., all this for OpenAI anyways, targeting the assembly of up to 2 ,000 racks per week through 2026. Now, Foxconn also announced a few things. They had an event that all this was announced at, but the other things that stood out, they separately announced its new Model A electric vehicle. They didn't really have a lot of detail to share about that, but they showed off kind of what the company is doing as they look to add the automotive sector to its existing manufacturing operations.

19:26And yeah, I mean, what can you say about Foxconn? And I think when I hear Foxconn, I automatically think Apple. And this seems to be a way to kind of move itself into a little bit more, I don't know, independence or less reliance, let's say, on the Apple relationship and the iPhone assembly relationship that they have going on. Definitely some diversification going on there. And I was actually surprised at how specific the server rack thing is. Assembly of up to 2 ,000 racks per week. And it's like, all right, so do you already have orders for those? And that's where it's all going. But also, I like the design of server racks just because I'm former IT and it's like, I want to see the pretty new stuff.

20:09The things that make server racks even better that most of us, like me, I wouldn't know a thing about a server, like what makes a good server rack versus not. So, yeah, innovation in the server rack space. That's what Foxconn is going to be known for here in a couple of years. But there we go. And finally, some quick headlines that are just good to know if you want to understand the news in the future. Google is bringing ads to its AI mode answers for the first time after first testing the answers engine within searches eight months ago. Ads are labeled as sponsored and appear at the bottom of the right column results.

20:48You had to know it was going to happen. And here you go. Samsung has returned to its dual CEO structure by appointing mobile chief TM Rowe as officially as co-CEO. Ro has been acting head of the consumer business since the sudden death, the sudden passing of co-CEO Han Zhong He last March. Spotify is letting users transfer their playlists from other services from within its mobile app using built-in TuneMyMusic integration now found at the bottom of your library tab. I love that, you know, moving playlists is getting less friction. I always thought that was lame that you had to use a third-party service to do that.

21:29So good to see. WhatsApp is bringing back the About status. That's actually its first ever feature from back in the day. So this is going to let users once again add a short blip of text that appears next to their avatar and in other places, similar to what you see in Instagram notes, and time limited to one day. So when you update it, it'll disappear a day later. Yeah, these features are targeted specifically to millennials who remember ICQ statuses, live journal statuses. And in Canada, for some reason, MSN was the big one. So yeah, you could put a giant MSN status and yeah, I'm absolutely going to play with this.

22:06Amazon's Alexa Plus is now appearing in early access in Canada with a conversational AI that's tailored to Canadian culture and integration with localized services like CBC. It's free for Prime members with a subscription and rolling out to select Echo devices before a wider expansion in 2026. Canadian culture. Sounds so, I don't know, but it sounds so something. Intuit has secured a multi-year$100 million partnership with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT's AI into its platforms. That includes TurboTax, Credit Karma, and QuickBooks. And we'll definitely be keeping an eye on that just because people got to get taxes right.

22:46You cannot hallucinate taxes. No. And Microsoft has open sourced the full Zork 1-3 code, build notes, and historical files under the MIT license, a move that is intended to preserve the game's legacy and enable anyone to study and play the text adventure games in perpetuity, which, boy, my friends are super stoked about. Heck, yes. I love it. Oh, I have such a soft space. A wonderful, warm place in my heart for Zork. Those are the essentials for today. Let's dive a little deeper. Yes, a major music copyright battle just flipped into a partnership. Interesting stuff happening in music right now.

23:28Andy Beach walks us through what Warner and UDO's truce really signals. Andy, welcome back to the show. Hey, Tom, good to see you again. Yeah. So we mentioned this yesterday, but not only did all three big music agencies, Universal, Sony and Warner, agree with a company called Clay to do training, but Warner has settled its long running lawsuit against Udio. So they went from being enemies to I don't know if we call it friends, but at least they're not fighting anymore. Tell us tell us more about this deal. I think the correct term in the industry for this is coopetition. We have a set of foxhole buddies that are there helping each other out.

24:11So, yeah, Warner Music has settled against Udio. And really, the outcome of that is that they now have a business deal in place that will be launching in in 2026, where they will be allowed to license against the catalog and there will be built in revenue share as part of it. So they'll be able to train on Warner Music with Warner's permission. They'll be able to let people make songs that use Warner Music and artists. Is that part of this as well? In my reading of it and my understanding of it, yes, that is the case. And there will be a system for flowing back through correct revenue share as a piece of that overall business deal.

24:56Yeah, but the big overall change here is the industry, at least the music industry in this case, saying not we are suing you. You can't use our stuff without permission, but saying, great, that's how much permission costs. And now you'll pay it and then we'll divvy it up amongst our artists. I think that is sort of a big takeaway. If you look at all of the deals that are starting to come together, we are finding that middle ground, at least on the music side, for what a relationship can look like. And it's not to say that others haven't done data training deals that are out there. Reddit and New York Times have both made some deals.

25:37There are others that are out there. This is the first time we're seeing the music industry as a whole find a way to move forward in how they work with the model makers and the output from those models. Yeah, and the music industry being somewhat consolidated the way it is means that, you know, you've got three big ones to deal with. And then you can deal with the indies. But once you get the big three, you've got a large amount of the music that exists available for training. Do you think this has any significant impact on the quality of these kinds of models? I mean, in theory, it should definitely improve it because it's legally sourced material.

26:18There should be a rich wealth of metadata that comes along with it. Or were they already training on it before, I guess is my question. I guess that is the question we're going to find out pretty rapidly. I think what it does entail is that we're moving into this licensed training economy system with media overall. all. And we will likely see similar, very public deals start to happen around video data in the near future as well. Do you think this changes how people feel about these tools? Because there's a lot of backlash against using generative models like this for artistic stuff. And one of the objections is you trained, you stole our stuff to train your models.

27:00Artists don't get any money for this. This deal promises to say, oh, well, we are now training legally and the artists will get a cut. Or at least the labels will get a cut. I do think it starts to be a change in the perception that is around it. We see more and more sort of acknowledgement of where AI gets used in the content that we are consuming in a variety of ways. and it will help further their case, the model makers, that is, if they can show sort of a direct line of sight of how someone made a profit off of being used as part of the training material. Yeah. And I wonder if individual artists can opt out of this within the labels, because I know many of them will probably want to.

27:44Yeah, that is a great question. And I don't think that was made apparently obvious in any of this to date. So I think that is something we're going to also have to watch as this continues to emerge early next year. We will then get to see if AI generated music made legally from big labels is something we want, or it's just a toy we want to play with, I guess. Or a thing we even recognize. There was an interesting fact in the article that I was citing originally that up to 97 % of the listeners couldn't actually distinguish between AI generated in human composed material. So we may already be consuming it.

28:21We're not even aware. Well, we're not living in a simulation, but we might be listening to synthesized music. Good to know. Andy Beach, thank you so much for helping us dig into this a little more. Appreciate it very much. You've got great stuff that people can read and listen to on their own. Where can they go to get it? Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Tom. I write on Substack. The name of my Substack is Engines of Change and the URL is enginesofchange.ai. All right. Thanks, man. Thank you. Thank you, Andy. Just a couple of things. Reminds me a lot of the Napster era where they did the opposite, where the record labels were like, no, we're going to push back.

28:58And then I think history has shown that that was to their detriment. And so maybe they're acting swiftly on this because of that, because of some of the lessons learned there, possibly. And the other thing I want to say is that, yes, they do have a requirement for artists to opt in. And that's been, I think, confirmed in the news that I've read about this. So there is an opt-in component here. If you're looking for the perfect gift for the DTNS fan in your life or yourself, you have to check out, and yes, I do mean have to, dailytechnewshow.com slash store. We have a new DTNS pint glass, which is currently being road tested by R.W.

29:37Nash. And there's Tom's new e-book called Synced, Know a Little More About Tech. We've also got holiday cards, postcards, and more with special DTNS holiday art by Len Peralta. So once again, go take a look at dailytechnewshow.com slash store. We end every episode of DTNS with some shared perspectives. And today, TJ has some thoughts on Waymo's new autonomous car locations. TJ writes, I have not seen a Waymo yet, but the bigger challenge for Waymo right now in Minneapolis is not snow, but rather road construction. This year has been the single biggest year for road construction projects I can remember.

30:20It's like someone decided to do all the projects at the same time. Many projects are in year one or two of a massive three to four year project. It's been one of the worst years for traffic disruption in a long time. Nearly every major highway in the area is under construction of some kind, and there are side streets of plenty under construction too. Add in some snow, if we actually get any this year, it's been pretty thin lately, and I think those backup drivers are going to be busy. Truly a great test for automated driving capabilities. I look forward to being able to get a ride in one. Regards, TJ Asher.

30:56as all those vehicles learn how to drive in more complicated scenarios everyone that's walking around and driving around is part of the beta test experience which uh yeah no uh it's stressful i'm kind of happy that i don't have to deal with them yet yeah i saw so many i was in san francisco on wednesday and i saw so many waymos they are everywhere in sf this is kind of crazy So what are you thinking about? Do you have some insight into a story, whether it's taking place in your backyard or not? Please share it with us over at feedback at dailytechnewsshow.com. Huge thank you to Andy Beach. Also, thank you to TJ for contributing to today's show.

31:42And thank you for being along for Daily Tech News Show. You can keep us in business. We hope that you do. Become a patron at patreon.com slash DTNS. This week's episodes of Daily Tech News Show were created by the following people.

32:20and moderator Zoe Detterning. Our mods, Beatmaster, WSkottis1, BioCow, Captain Kipper, Steve Guadarama, Paul Reese, Matthew J. Stevens, a.k.a. Gadget Virtuoso, and J.D. Galloway. Mod and video hosting by Dan Christensen. Music provided by Martin Bell and Dan Luters. Art by Len Peralta. Acast ad support by Tatiana Matias. Patreon support from Bobby Wagner. Our guests this week, Dr. Nikki, Justin Robert Young, and Andy Beach, and a huge thank you to all our patrons who make this show possible.

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