Samsung ATIV Beam lets Windows Phone talk to Android, previously thought to be impossible

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Published 26 Jun 2013

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Disclosure

ativbeam

Samsung hasn’t come out with a Windows Phone in a while, but that doesn’t mean they’re not supporting the platform. The company has just released an app called “ATIV Beam” that allows Windows Phones to send files to Android phones using the “tap and send” NFC feature. Android phones unfortunately will not be able to send files to Windows Phones, but half the battle is won.

The real issue here is that cross platform NFC based file transfers are totally broken. Hell, even if you look at just Android, different implementations can cause issues to occur. Samsung sure does love to talk about tapping Galaxy phones together to transfer files, but anyone who has ever tried that knows it’s far harder to do than what’s shown in the commercials. It’s so hard in fact that it’s simply easier to send files over email.

Why am I writing about ATIV Beam? Because it shows that Samsung, despite not appearing to give a damn about having their devices talking to each other, actually does.

Who would’ve thought?