Old Android hands should remember when Ice Cream Sandwich brought a brand new feature called "Android Beam" to everyone's favorite operating system. Basically, it was sort of like a much worse version of Apple's recently-released AirDrop, initiating file transfers locally via NFC. Sadly for those that enjoyed it, the feature was removed from Android Q.

The feature was actually removed all the way back in Beta 1. It escaped our typically thorough feature-level coverage of the release (whoops, sorry!), even though some of us were aware of the change when it occurred. We had expected it would eventually be removed based on some commits that were previously spotted in AOSP by our buds at XDA.

TechRadar has confirmed with representatives at the ongoing Google I/O developer conference that it won't be coming back, our own examinations of the current beta also confirm its continued absence.

If you made use of Android Beam then you will have to switch to something else like the peer-to-peer sharing in the Files app.

Via: TechRadar