AirDroid 3 Beta Preview – Win a Year of AirDroid Premium!

It’s the little things that make using convergence apps like Pushbullet and AirDroid so appealing. As I’ve been sitting here typing this article, I’ve gotten three text messages from my wife. My old workflow: hear annoying buzz, stop typing, pick up phone, unlock phone, click on notification, read message, reply, lock phone, put down phone, return to computer, and oh yeah, lose my entire train of thought.

Now text message notifications appear directly on the bottom right corner of desktop monitor. I can make the decision to ignore them at a glance or shoot off a reply without losing my stride. It almost sounds silly, and that’s just one minor example, but these apps make me incrementally more productive, and that’s pretty cool. Let’s take a peek at our walkthrough of AirDroid 3 beta.

Samsung announced their “Flow” convergence initiative last month (and of course, there is Apple’s Continuity), but really much of that PC (or Mac)-to-phone functionality already exists with AirDroid. And when the AirDroid team contacted us with a preview of their new v3 release, we were excited to give it a try. On XDA, we host the official AirDroid support forum because we think it’s such a great product.

Major new features include a native Windows and Mac client with Android notification, SMS, and incoming call alerts; drag & drop file transfer to your device; contact management; and a new AD feature they are calling AirMirror. If you have a rooted device (or one of few “certified” devices), AirMirror allows you to, over the air, operate any app using your mouse and keyboard. We found this feature to be the most promising.

We have 10 license codes for one year of AirDroid premium to give away to XDA users. If you want one, post a comment below telling us your favorite AirDroid feature (hint, take a look at the official list of changes below). Sometime on Friday (December 5) we’ll randomly pick 10 winners. To get AirDroid 3 or to find out more about how it all works, check out the AirDroid website.

AirDroid 3 Features:

Windows/Mac Client:
The long awaited native Windows and Mac clients are here. Web is great, but for many use cases, desktop client does a much better job. With the new desktop client, Android notifications, new SMS, incoming call alerts will be automatically displayed at the bottom right of your computer. No need to open a web browser. No need to sign in every time. It just works, like Apple’s new Continuity feature, but for more than 1 billion Android and Windows users. P.S. Don’t forget that it also works on Mac.

The desktop clients will have the following features in the first release and we promise more will follow:
1) Files: Drag & Drop files to transfer to Android devices.
2) SMS: Receive and reply to SMS.
3) Notification mirroring: Android app notifications are pushed to desktop in real time.
4) Calls: Get incoming call alerts, reject with a message.
5) Contacts: Manage contacts.
6) Air Mirror (See below)

AirMirror:
Mirror Android screen to Windows/Mac, and operate any apps directly using mouse and keyboard, all over the air. Air Mirror can be very useful for many use cases. A great example is you can receive and reply to Whatsapp messages on computer.

This feature works on rooted devices and a few certified devices without root. We are working hard to expand the list of certified devices.

Security:
End-to-end encryption (E2EE) for private messages between each end – Android, Windows, and Mac. It’s a highest security standard for protecting user data. With E2EE, it’s practically impossible for any 3rd party (including Google, Apple or AirDroid Team) to gain access to the users’ private messages, like SMS, contacts, Android notifications, etc., during transmission.

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source: xdadevelopers