Google and Samsung announce Quick Share for easy content sharing

Google announced a slew of new features today at CES. The new Quick Share technology, created in collaboration with Samsung, is likely to take the cake. This will take the place of Google's Nearby Share, which was released in 2020.

It's intriguing to see Google embrace Samsung's naming conventions for what was once its own equivalent service. The new Quick Share is marketed as offering the best of both worlds. Google claims to have "integrated the experiences" with Samsung, resulting in the finest default, built-in choice for peer-to-peer content sharing across all sorts of Android and Chrome OS devices.

Furthermore, the company is collaborating with "leading PC manufacturers" such as LG in the future to bring the new Quick Share to Windows PCs as a preloaded software. With the new method, you just press the Quick Share button to see a list of nearby devices.

Of course, you have the option of allowing everyone, just your contacts, or just your own devices to detect your device and transfer data. The new Quick Share feature is planned to be available to current Nearby Share-enabled devices in February.

Moving on, Fast Pair will be available on Chromecast and Google TV within the next month, and will be available on even more Google TV devices later this year. Once your attachment is in pairing mode, connecting compatible headphones or speakers to your Google TV is as simple as a tap. There will also be simple audio output settings that will allow you to instantly return to your normal TV audio whenever you choose. TikTok content may now be cast from your phone to Chromecast-enabled devices. This will soon apply to live TikTok videos as well.

Google states that by 2024, LG's TV portfolio, as well as products under LG Hospitality and LG Healthcare, will include Chromecast built-in, allowing you to cast from your phone to the LG TV in your hotel or hospital room. According to Google, there are currently over 220 million monthly active Google TV and other Android TV devices in use.

Later this year, a new casting function will be available that will allow you to transport what's playing on Spotify and YouTube Music from your compatible Pixel phone to your docked Pixel Tablet when it's nearby. This way, if you're listening on your phone while driving, you may switch to the tablet once you get home.

LG TVs, as well as certain Google TV and other Android TV devices, will operate as Google Home hubs in the future, making it easier to add devices using the Matter protocol to your home network and manage them locally with the Google Home app.