Inter client mesh - was AirDrop an insight to the future?

A couple of years ago I played around with some Mac OS X clients and a packet analyser in an attempt to gain a better understanding of what was going on between the clients when using AirDrop. I was intrigued to see if there was any interaction with local wireless infrastructure. We had been receiving assistance requests from School IT Teams regarding wireless performance where they attributed the issue to student use of AirDrop. So I took a peek at packets and frames to see if I could uncover anything that might be useful from a vendor level to better co- or inter-operate with AirDrop.

I was surprised by how efficient the data transfer was. Inter device file sharing seemed so smooth and transfers were fast. Should I have been so surprised? Of course cutting out an AP (or a hop in a single duplex network) will improve performance.

Apple’s laser focus on end user experience bypassed the thought that vendors might struggle with the concept of co-inhabiting an airspace where clients have direct wireless interaction. The implementation of AirDrop was relatively user friendly and has only improved with the integration with iOS devices. It’s this user centric vision that lead me to my next thought...

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