Recent reports reveal that Apple is editing the AirDrop feature in iOS devices. The reason for this change has links to its abuse in China. There has been a widespread protest against the Chinese government. The AirDrop is playing a significant role in the protest. Now, Apple is now omitting a certain feature of the AirDrop. According to Bloomberg, users can no longer receive content on their devices from unknown sources. Thus, if content arrives on your device, you must know the source. Apple is restricting this AirDrop function with the introduction of iOS 16.1.1 in China. This option is no longer available.
AirDrop can only freely receive content for 10 minutes at a time
You will agree that receiving content only from your contact list can be a bit troublesome. Thus, Apple is offering an option. If you want to receive content from an unknown source, you can manually set the device. This setting will only be active for 10 minutes. Once the time elapses, the system switches back to a setting where only devices from the recipient’s contact list can AirDrop files.
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Of course, Apple refuses to agree that these changes have a political undertone. The company claims that it is avoiding the distribution of potentially questionable content via AirDrop. Nevertheless, at this critical time in China, some believe that this is political.
Corona lockdowns and re-election of Xi Jinping
AirDrop has also been used as a way of protesting for years. In China, there have been circulations of protest images against the Communist Party and its leader Xi Jinping. Apple AirDrop has an advantage because the Chinese government censorship only works on the internet. With AirDrop, however, data moves locally in a kind of ad hoc network between two devices.
Apple now limits the time it takes to receive files from “non-contacts” to 10 minutes. This should make it much more difficult to use them to distribute protest images. This type of use has been documented many times since the feature was introduced. Only recently has it received more attention. After all, the Chinese Communist Party, Xi was elected to a third term. This is the first time in Chinese history that this is happening. Of course, many people do not like this.
