Why is AirDrop support disabled by default on Samsung Galaxy?

Ben Schoon | Mar 24 2026 - 4:00 am PT

Samsung will officially start rolling out AirDrop support over Quick Share on Galaxy S26 devices throughout this week but, personally, I’m really curious as to why it’s being disabled by default.

On Sunday night, Samsung confirmed plans to start rolling out AirDrop support on Galaxy S26 over Quick Share, a feature that first arrived on Google’s Pixel 10 series as a complete surprise late last year.

Samsung rolling out AirDrop over Quick Share on Galaxy S26, more devices coming

It’s great news, in part because it’s the first expansion beyond Pixel devices and a show that, not only can more devices support this, but that Google seems pretty confident Apple isn’t going to kill this functionality somehow.

So why is it not enabled for everyone?

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On Google Pixel devices, AirDrop support over Quick Share is live right away, as soon as the feature arrives on the device. On Samsung Galaxy devices, it needs to be turned on via a toggle found in Settings > Connected Devices > Quick Share > Share with Apple Devices.

It’s a very strange choice on Samsung’s part. The company explained that the addition of AirDrop support is “part of Samsung’s ongoing efforts to improve compatibility across operating systems,” which seems to directly go against the idea of leaving it turned off by default. Given the fact that both parties need to switch to “Everyone” mode for this to work in the first place, “security” seems to be an unlikely explanation as well.

The idea of having a toggle in general is probably a good idea, but having the ability to turn if off rather than the requirement to turn it on seems like the smarter play.

I’m sure there’s an explanation for this, but it just doesn’t feel like it makes any sense. What do you think?