Video shows how Google’s version of NameDrop for Android will work | Infinium-tech

In November we first heard that Google was working on creating something similar to Apple’s NameDrop, but for Android devices. NameDrop was launched in 2023 and lets you share files with another iPhone owner by bringing your iPhones together. NameDrop also supports sharing contact information.

And it looks like Google is focusing on that contact sharing bit in its implementation, at least initially. The video embedded below shows how Google’s version of Namedrop for Android will actually work in practice, take a look.

It is still unclear what Google will call this feature. During development, it’s being referred to as Gesture Exchange as well as Contact Exchange, and one of those could be the actual business name for the service, but hopefully Google’s marketing teams can think of something more catchy.

Either way, the feature is still in active development and not ready yet, as evidenced by the fact that while the animation shown in the video above works, the actual contact exchange is still not functional. So we’ll assume it will launch sometime in 2026.

When this happens, you may need to put a little effort into aligning the NFC antennas of the two Android devices, as they are used for the initial handshake. While iPhones have consistently had those antennas on top, things are quite different with Android smartphones.

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