Samsung kicked off the rollout of AirDrop support through Quick Share on March 23, starting in South Korea. From there, the update spread to Europe, India, and other regions over the next few days. Now, Galaxy S26 owners across the United States are reporting that they have received the update too, and confirming it is live on their devices.
Once you install the firmware update, a new “Share with Apple devices” toggle shows up in your Quick Share settings. You will also need Google Play Services version 26.11.XX or newer for everything to work properly. After that, sending files between your Galaxy S26 and an iPhone, iPad, or Mac is about as easy as it has always been between two iPhones. It works both ways too, so your iPhone-using friends can AirDrop stuff right back to you.We actually first caught wind of this feature when a last-minute leak suggested the Galaxy S26 series would come with AirDrop compatibility before the phones even launched. However, the actual rollout didn’t happen until now following the official announcement that it would happen through a software update this week.
The Samsung Galaxy S26 series AirDrop update hits devices in the U.S. | Images by PhoneArena
Sharing files between Android and Apple devices has been a pain for way too long. You either had to email files to yourself, upload them to cloud storage, or download some third-party app. AirDrop was honestly one of those iPhone features that kept people glued to Apple’s ecosystem, and that wall is finally starting to come down.There is a catch, though. Right now, this update only works on the Galaxy S26 series. Samsung has said it plans to bring AirDrop support to older Galaxy devices “at a later date,” but there is no timeline and no specific device list.
As we noted in our Galaxy S26 Ultra review, the phone is a strong flagship that excels in software refinements and AI features even if the hardware upgrades feel iterative. AirDrop support is a perfect example of that: it is a software-level addition that genuinely improves the everyday experience. The same goes for the standard Galaxy S26, which we called a “masterclass in ergonomics” in our review.
I am glad this update has made it to the U.S., and I can confirm I have received it on my own Galaxy S26 Ultra. This is one of those things that sounds like a small deal until you actually use it. I work off a MacBook when writing my articles, and being able to take a screenshot on my Galaxy and instantly send it to my Mac for use in a piece (like the screenshots in this very article) has already saved me a bunch of time. No more emailing files to myself or messing around with cloud uploads.
Samsung took a full month after the S26 launched to deliver this, while Pixel users have been enjoying it since November. But credit where it is due: the rollout has been quick once it got going, and the feature works exactly the way you would expect. If Samsung can push this to older Galaxy phones sooner rather than later, it will be a huge win for the millions of Galaxy owners who have been watching Pixel users enjoy cross-platform sharing from the sidelines.
Leave a comment