AirDrop is a proprietary wireless ad hoc service in Apple Inc.‘s iOS and macOS operating systems, introduced in Mac OS X Lion (Mac OS X 10.7) and iOS 7, which can transfer files among supported Macintosh computers and iOS devices by means of close-range wireless communication. How to Change Your Name in AirDrop on iPhone. This communication takes place over Apple Wireless Direct Link ‘Action Frames’ and ‘Data Frames’ using generated link-local IPv6 addresses instead of the Wi-Fi chip’s fixed MAC address.
Prior to OS X Yosemite (OS X 10.10), and under OS X Lion, Mountain Lion, and Mavericks (OS X 10.7–10.9, respectively) the Airdrop Protocol in macOS was different from the AirDrop protocol of iOS, and the two were therefore not interoperable. OS X Yosemite and later support the iOS AirDrop protocol, which is used for transfers between a Mac and an iOS device as well as between two 2012 or newer Mac computers, and which uses both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Legacy mode for the old AirDrop protocol (which only uses Wi-Fi) between a 2012 or older Mac computer (or a computer running OS X Lion through OS X Mavericks) and another Mac computer was also available until macOS Mojave. Apple reveals no limit on the size of the file which AirDrop can transfer.
Here is How to Change Your Name in AirDrop on iPhone
Changing your AirDrop name on an iPhone involves a change that you may not want to make. Luckily, that’s not true on the iPad and Mac, as we’ll see in the next two sections.
AirDrop on the iPhone uses the name you have for yourself in your Contacts card. Changing your name there changes how you appear in AirDrop, but it also changes your name in all uses that access your contact card. For instance, if we wanted to change the AirDrop name from “Sam” to “Mister X,” anytime Safari tries to autofill the name in a form on a website, it would use “Mister X” as the first name. Potentially annoying!
Still, if you want to change your name in AirDrop on your iPhone, here’s how to do it:
- Open the Contacts app (or open Phone and tap Contacts).
- Tap your name at the top of the list.
- Tap Edit.
- Tap your first name and then tap the x in that field to delete what’s there.
- Type in the new first name you want to use and tap Done to save it.
- With that done, your AirDrop name has changed. It’s only changed on this iPhone, though—it doesn’t sync to other devices. It may take a few minutes for the change to register on other people’s devices when using AirDrop.
