Say you want to quickly transfer a
file, like a photo or a contact entry, from your smartphone to a friend’s. Most
people would email or text the file. But a number of technologies have come
along to make the process quicker and simpler.
On some Android phones, you can
“beam” files like photos from phone to phone by tapping one phone to another,
or bringing them very close. But that requires that both phones have a special
chip, called NFC, which isn’t yet universal on Android phones and doesn’t exist
at all in iPhones.
Another approach is to use an app
called Bump, which transfers files between iPhones and Android phones when
those holding them do a sort of sideways fist bump. It works pretty well, but
you have to make contact with the other person.
This week, I’ve been testing a
different approach—an iPhone app called Xsync. It doesn’t require any special
chip and instead uses a free app and a hardware feature almost every smartphone
possesses—the camera. While it is primarily meant, like Bump, for transfers
between phones in proximity, it works over long distances. I was able to almost
instantly send and get photos, videos and songs using Xsync between two iPhones
held up to computer webcams during a Skype video call.
The key to Xsync is the QR code,
that square symbol found seemingly everywhere these days—online, in print
newspapers and magazines, on posters and other places. These codes typically
just contain text—often, a Web address. But Xsync, a tiny company based in
Seattle, generates QR codes that initiate the transfer of whole files, or in
the case of photos, even groups of files. It has a built-in QR code scanner to
read these codes using the phone’s camera.
The biggest drawback to Xsync is
that it is currently only available for the iPhone. An Android version is
planned for sometime this quarter. Meanwhile, you can use an Android phone with
any QR code reader to receive, though not send, files sent via Xsync.
The Xsync app is something of a
teaser for the underlying technology, which the company calls the Optical
Message Service. The company’s goal isn’t to build its own apps, but to license
the technology to cellphone makers so it becomes a built-in way to transfer
files.
Here’s how it works. Once you
install Xsync on your iPhone, you select an audio file, photo, video, contact,
or calendar appointment, each of which is represented by a simple icon. The app
creates a QR code representing the intended transfer of that file and
temporarily sends the file to Xsync’s server. Your friend uses Xsync to scan
the QR code you’ve created with his or her iPhone’s camera, and the files are
sent to your friend’s iPhone.
In my tests, it was easy, quick and
reliable. I successfully used Xsync to send and receive all the included types
of files with an iPhone 5, an iPhone 4S, and an iPad Mini. I was also able to
receive files on an Android phone, a Google Nexus 4, via a QR code generated by
Xsync.
You can even generate a QR code
using Xsync that will allow you to transfer money from your PayPal account to
another person’s, though that requires an added authentication step for
security. But it worked, and would be a good way to, say, split a bill at a
restaurant. (This PayPal feature of Xsync doesn’t work with Android, for now.)
The company says the file transfers
are secure, for two reasons. First, they are encrypted. More important, each
code is generated for a specific transfer and expires after a relatively short
time. For instance, codes for photos expire after 24 hours, according to the
company.
You can use Xsync to transmit
certain kinds of files—including documents—you’ve stored in your Dropbox account,
though, oddly, the Xsync app hides this document-transfer feature under an icon
for sharing calendar appointments.
And you don’t have to be close to
make the transfer. In addition to my Skype example, you can send a QR code
generated by Xsync via email or text message, or even post the code to
Facebook. Another person can then scan the code to get the file.
Xsync can generate codes that
represent either existing files on your phone, or files you create on the spot.
If you don’t want to use an existing one, the audio, photo, video and calendar
icons in the app invite you to create a new file to be transferred.
On the iPhone, the receiving device
displays the transferred files right within the Xsync app. If you’re using an
Android phone to receive, you get a Web address that leads you to the file on
Xsync’s server.
If you have an iPhone, Xsync is an
effective way to transfer files like photos, songs, videos and more between
phones. [AllThingsD]
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