Whether you love or hate the iPhone, there’s no doubt that the area where Apple has mastered is ecosystem building. Twenty years ago, the iPod drove Mac adoption, and today the company has a wide range of products and solutions that work together from your pocket to your living room and beyond.
Whether it’s copying text on your MacBook and pasting it on your iPhone, unlocking your Mac with your Apple Watch, or easily switching what you’re listening to between an Apple TV, HomePod, and a set of AirPods. Apple has accomplished something almost magical. The experience of using your products together simply works.
In recent years, Google and Samsung have worked to do the same within their respective ecosystems, which include earbuds, tablets, and Android TV solutions alongside Pixel and Galaxy phones. Now, Qualcomm is coming up with a better solution that promises to unify all Android devices and accessories so they “work as one.”
It’s Snapdragon seamless
During today’s Snapdragon Summit, Qualcomm announced the next innovation in its Snapdragon chip technology. Dubbed “Snapdragon Seamless,” it is a cross-platform solution that will allow all devices powered by its Qualcomm Snapdragon series of chips to share information and provide smoother multi-device experiences so that they operate as a unified system. Can work in.
Unlike Apple, Google and Samsung, this will not be a one-and-done-vendor ecosystem. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips are found in nearly every Android smartphone and tablet on the market, and they’re starting to find their way into more traditional Windows PCs as well. So, Qualcomm has a huge list of partners to choose from, and has already signed up Microsoft, Android, Xiaomi, Asus, Honor, Lenovo and Oppo for its first collaboration “to create multi-device experiences enabled by Snapdragon seamless”. Have signed.
Although the announcement just came today, Qualcomm and its partners have apparently been working on it for some time, as the chipmaker says the first devices with Snapdragon Seamless could arrive later this year. Solutions go beyond simply exchanging data between phones, tablets and laptops, empowering mice and keyboards to work seamlessly across multiple devices.
The best part is that if you are using Microsoft Surface with Asus smartphones and Lenovo tablets then you won’t have to worry; They’ll all work together as one happy family of devices – as long as they have Qualcomm’s latest silicon.
“Snapdragon Seamless fundamentally breaks down the barriers between [manufacturers], device and operating system. It’s the only cross-device solution that truly puts the user first,” said Dino Beccis, Qualcomm vice president and general manager of wearables and mixed signal solutions.
Unsurprisingly, Snapdragon Seamless is included in Qualcomm’s latest chips, so don’t expect it to appear as an update for older devices. However, it should be available in all new flagships, as the company says it’s included in the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile platform – the chip that will undoubtedly power next year’s Samsung Galaxy S24 series – as well. Also Snapdragon X Elite PC chipset. And wearables and hearable devices that use Qualcomm chips, such as the Snapdragon Sound Platform that relies on the Qualcomm S7 Pro Gen 1 chip.
For now, Qualcomm is focusing on those specific platforms, but it plans to expand Snapdragon Seamless to extended reality hardware and automotive and Internet of Things platforms.
What can Snapdragon Seamless do?
Out of the gate, Snapdragon will seamlessly cover the most popular multi-device scenarios, providing easy discovery of devices, file transfer, screen and file sharing and intelligent audio switching across multiple platforms.
In practical terms, this means you’ll be able to drag and drop a file from a Qualcomm-powered laptop to your Android smartphone without needing to go through a complicated pairing and searching process; Both devices should be immediately visible to each other as potential destinations for your files. The same technology will be used to start a screen-sharing session.
Intelligent audio switching is something Apple, Google, and Samsung users are probably already familiar with. This allows the AirPods, Pixel Buds or Galaxy Buds to transparently hand off audio between their respective devices – like a call coming through on your iPhone while you’re listening to music on your MacBook.
However, Snapdragon Seamless will take it a step further due to its cross-platform nature. For the first time, you’ll be able to do this even if all your devices are made by different vendors – including earbuds.
While extended reality (XR) applications are a little further down the road, Qualcomm showed off an XR fitness demo showing how a pair of smart glasses could show a personal trainer and workout metrics right at the wearer’s eyes. It was intended to show the scale of the Snapdragon Seamless platform, which will likely be used to connect the glasses to whatever device is being used to host a workout.
Again, the biggest catch of all this is that these devices need to be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips. This is very common among Android smartphones and tablets, but less so with laptops, headphones, and earbuds.
Qualcomm naturally hopes Snapdragon Seamless will encourage more manufacturers to adopt its latest Qualcomm chips, but one thing seems clear – Apple fans will be left out of the multi-platform party. Although Qualcomm says Snapdragon Seamless is “open to everyone”, this should be read for everyone making Android, Windows, and Snapdragon devices. With the exception of its 5G modem chips, Apple doesn’t rely on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon platform, meaning iPhone and iPad owners will simply have to continue enjoying life within their own walls.
