Google is preparing the Contacts app for the great Tap to Share feature. Send a business card by simply bringing phones together

Google’s own equivalent of Apple’s NameDrop, which Google calls Tap to Share, is slowly expanding into other applications. The latest version of Contacts hides preparations in its code to send your business card with a single tap of phone to phone.

Sharing contacts today still looks the same: open the directory, find yourself, navigate through the sharing menu and select an application, or even dictate it manually. Google wants to shorten this to a single gesture. Preparations for Tap to Share – sharing where you just need to bring two phones close to each other – have appeared in the Contacts app’s code. We wrote about this upcoming feature for all of Android before, and now it’s becoming clear how Google will integrate it directly into the directory.

What’s actually changing in Contacts?

The section with your own business card, i.e., the item “Your details”, will change the most. Today it’s hidden in settings, but it’s now set to move directly to the top of the contact list, so you’ll have it readily available. The app will apparently automatically fill in your name, photo, and email from your Google account, and you’ll then be able to edit the details.

Next to the business card, a sharing icon will appear. And this is where it intersects with the new feature – fresh links have appeared in the code that connect the button next to “Your details” with the Tap to Share function. You’ll thus send your own contact to another phone simply by bringing it close to it.

How does Tap to Share actually work?

Let’s recall how the entire sharing process is supposed to work. NFC in phones serves only as a trigger; the actual data transfer, according to current information, will be handled by faster Wi-Fi Direct. In practice, you bring the phones close to each other (even back-to-back, as the NFC chip is often in a different place on each model) and wait for the confirmation animation to appear.

Google is preparing the Contacts app for the great Tap to Share feature. Send a business card by simply bringing phones together Adam Kurfürst News Adam Kurfürst News

Not only contacts are meant to be shared this way, but also photos, videos, or links. This is Google’s take on the NameDrop, or rather AirDrop, feature from Apple.

However, this is currently a finding in the code, not a finished product – you cannot yet launch the feature in the app. The analysis revealed preparations in Contacts version 4.82.29, which indicates that work on sharing business cards is underway. When and in what form it will arrive for everyone is not yet certain.

Would you use Tap to Share for quick contact exchange?

Source: Android Authority