Apple will be setting a 10-minute AirDrop limit to everyone by next year.
To combat the spam associated with AirDrop messages, the upcoming iOS 16.2 beta and 16.1.1 update will have a new ‘Everyone for 10 Minutes’ option on AirDrop content in China. Previously, there wasn’t any limit as to how long AirDrop lasted, and there were complaints about the spread of anti-government material from protesters in the country.
Currently, AirDrop has three options- Everyone, Contacts Only, and Receiving Off. For Everyone, iPhone users can send messages within close proximity via AirDrop, which results in a pop-up screen to deny or accept the transfer. Apple replaced Everyone with ‘Everyone for 10 Minutes’, and once ten minutes have passed then the settings default to Contacts Only.
Mark Gurman of Bloomberg reports that the new AirDrop option will be made available to all users next year to reduce spam file sharing.
