Bump didn't use direct device-to-device communication. A central server correlated the two bumping phones, based on geolocation and accelerometer data, then swapped the data via the server. At least that's how it worked in the early days. (Wiki page confirms)

Since it's relying on your internet connection, skeptical it'd be faster than AirDrop for a large amount of data like photos. But for swapping contacts I bet it was faster since it didn't have to spend time establishing a new direct connection.

Waaay back when in Japan, sekigaisen (infrared) was a verb meaning to transfer contact details or photos or whatever between phones via infrared. It was amazing how fast the iPhone took over Japan and killed off their quirky phone ecosystem.

Edit: want to emphasize that it was totally ubiquitous. Every phone has it

I can almost guarantee it wasn’t faster than airdrop (when it works) is today. I remember using bump on wifi, and it was limited to (shocking) wifi speeds at the time. I have as recently as last week transferred 1GB video files in under 20 seconds using airdrop. That simply was not possible in 2009.

Bump was like magic.

The only app I have ever truly thought “this is the future”

Very cool, didn't know such app had existed, thank you! Wanted to use a similar approach to connect people in a smaller friends-only social network.

Not necessarily, Since 2015 launch NAN has been vaporware outside android, nobody else support it. Windows does not do so today either [1].

In Linux iw and the new cfg80211 NAN module has support for some hardware. There are few chips in desktop/laptop ecosystem that have the feature, but it is hard to know which ones today, it is more common not to have support than to.

AFAIK no major distros include UI based support that regular users can use. Most Chromebooks do not have the hardware to support, ChromeOS[2] did not have support OOB, so even Google does not implement it for all their devices in the first place.

For Apple to implement is easier than Microsoft or Google given their vertical control, but not simple even if they wanted to. They may still need a hardware update/change and they typically rollout few versions of the hardware first before they announce support so most people have access to it, given the hardware refresh cycle it is important for basic user experience which is why people buy Apple. What is the point if you cannot share with most users because they don't have latest hardware? Average user will try couple of times and never use it again because it doesn't "work".

Sometimes competing standards / lack of compliance are political play for control of the standards not about vendor lock-in directly. Developers are the usual casualties in these wars, rather than end users directly. Webdevs been learning that since JScript in the mid 90s.

All this to say, as evidences go this is weak for selective compliance due to regulatory pressure.

[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/2284386/...

[2] I haven't checked recently

Apple will never leave the EU market, that would be a stupid decision. EU is barely smaller than the US market if looking at GDP per capita, it's only a difference of ~$16,000. If looking at population, EU is larger than the US.

Hopefully they keep cracking open the walls of Apple's garden and Apple stops region locking the changes to just those markets.

The day Apple leaves the EU will be the day that its shareholders will string Apple's CEO up by his own entrails.

His successor will immediately reverse course.