Adamya Sharma / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google’s been working on a new AirDrop-like Tap to Share feature for sharing photos, videos, contacts, and more.
- Ahead of that arriving, it looks like the Google Contacts app is being updated to get ready to support it.
- The app will move “Your info” to the top of the contacts list for quick sharing access.
We’ve been tapping our phones to make payments for the better part of forever at this point, but there’s still something undeniably slick about getting a new way to get something done with just a quick tap of our phone. Lately, we’ve been anticipating Android getting an AirDrop-style Tap to Share feature, and today we’re checking out some changes to Google Contacts that appear to be in preparation for its arrival.
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We’re putting Google’s new version 4.82.29.936766038 release of Contacts under the microscope today, and while you won’t see any of these changes present in the app if you fire up this release on your own phone, we’ve been able to get an early look at how the app should look once this is finally live.
Our focus today is on “Your info,” where Contacts lets you fill out — like it says on the tin — all your own information. Right now, this is buried in app settings, and selecting it brings up the screen where you can add your data:
That may be fine when you’re not needing to access it too frequently, but when Tap to Share gets here, we’re probably going to want to have an easier way to get at it, so we can quickly pass our info along to someone we meet. And indeed, Contacts is working on just that, preparing to start adding “Your info” to the top of our contact list:
We’re also seeing some changes to how Contacts lets you edit that data. Hitting the pencil icon in the top-right will bring up a slightly revised screen compared to what we have now. We’ll soon see direct Google account integration, pulling up your name and photo up top, and automatically adding your email address. If you do want to use a different email, you’ll be free to change it:
Once you’ve got all that entered in, you’ll be able to hit the share icon next to “Your info” at the top of your contact list to send it to someone, just like you can now from the screen deep within settings:
AssembleDebug / Android Authority
“Neat,” you say, “but what does this have to do with Tap to Share?” For that, we just need to take a peek at the code, where we’re finding fresh references to “Your info” right next to Tap to Share:
AssembleDebug / Android Authority
Taking in all we’ve found together, it’s hard to look at this as anything other than a Contacts UI tweak being prepared specifically for the arrival of Tap to Share. Of course, that still doesn’t put us any closer to knowing when it will ultimately be ready to roll out, but we’ll be keeping an eye on future Android 17 Feature Drops for any sign of it.
⚠️ An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
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