How to Easily Hand Off Activities Between Your Mac and i-Devices

(Apple)

The term “Continuity” may sound like a word your boss made up to describe a bureaucratic company procedure, but, believe it or not, it’s one of Apple’s most exciting innovations of the past year.

A feature baked into the company’s latest desktop operating system, it eliminates the distance between your mobile devices and your computer, allowing you to easily transfer your digital activities between your Mac, iPad, iPhone, and iPod.

Its capabilities run wide and far: You can receive phone calls and send texts on your computer, transfer files between your phone and Mac, and many more Mac-to-iPhone and iPhone-to-Mac activities that my colleague David Pogue details here.

Continuity’s most seductive use, however, is what Apple calls Handoff: the ability to start something on your phone or tablet and switch midway through to your desktop computer.

For example, with Handoff you can start writing an email on your phone as you walk to work, and finish it on your computer when you sit down at your desk. Or you can open a Keynote presentation on your phone and then automatically throw it onto your iPad for your co-workers to examine.

When it works properly, it’s a no-fuss way to get stuff done across multiple Apple devices. And there’s nothing cooler than a person who can effortlessly control the technology around her, as opposed to the other way around.

But as seamless as it appears, the setup this feature requires is not entirely intuitive. Below is a quick instructional guide on making Handoff happen:

Venture to Yosemite
First and foremost, you must update your Mac to the latest desktop operating system, OS X Yosemite (named after California’s wonderful sprawling national park). Continuity works only if you have Continuity loaded on your Mac.

The good news about Yosemite? It’s free! The bad news: It takes awhile to install. But once it’s done, it’s done.

Here are some things to ask yourself before doing the deed:

• Have you upgraded to the most recent version of OS X, last year’s Mavericks, without ruining your computer? If the answer is yes, then you may proceed with the download.

• If not, you should probably check to make sure your device is one of these: iMac (mid-2007 or newer, MacBook (late 2008 aluminum, or early 2009 or newer), MacBook Pro (mid/late 2007 or newer), MacBook Air (late 2008 or newer), Mac mini (early 2009 or newer), Mac Pro (early 2008 or newer), Xserve (early 2009). You can obtain this information by clicking the Apple symbol in the upper-left corner of the screen and selecting About This Mac.

• While you’re there, you should also check out what version of software you’re running. You can update to OS X from Snow Leopard (v10.6.8), Lion (v10.7), Mountain Lion (v10.8), OS X Mavericks (v10.9), and Me OW (v.56). Just kidding about that last one.

• If you are running an earlier version of that software, you’ll have to update to update. It’s a wild, wild world out there. Sorry, dude.

Once you’ve double-checked that there’s no way this upgrade will destroy your computer, mosey on over to the App Store and click the Download button. It’ll walk you through the whole thing, step by step, and in about 30 minutes you’ll have a brand-new operating system!

Download the latest version of iOS 8
Here’s a step-by-step guide to doing that.

Quick caveat: Handoff works only on i-devices that have Bluetooth low energy. So that means iPhone 5 or later, iPad 4 or later, any iPad mini, and iPod Touch 5.

Cross your T’s
Your work is not done! You must now turn some dials behind the scenes for this to work on your Mac, iPhone, and iPad.

On your Mac:

• Again, click on the Apple icon in the upper-left corner of the screen, and select System Preferences.

• Click General.

• At the bottom of the page, check the box next to Allow Handoff.

On your iPhone and iPad:

• Open the Settings app on your phone and select General.

• Select Handoff & Suggested Apps.

• Enable the Handoff feature.

That’s it!

All your devices must be:

• Logged into the same iCloud account.

• Connected to the same Wi-Fi network.

• Bluetooth-enabled. (You may be worried that all this Bluetooth use will drain your phone. But Apple’s now using a low-energy method of transmission that is designed to preserve your battery life.)

And, finally, it’s important to note that the Handoff feature works only on the following Apple-made apps:

• Mail

• Safari

• Maps

• Messages

• Reminders

• Calendar

• Contacts

• Pages

• Numbers

• Keynote

That’s a lot! So, now, let’s explore how to actually use Handoff. Stay with me here; this is the fun part.

Handing off between mobile devices
If you’re attempting to switch from iPhone to iPad, you need to be using one of the devices listed above. If you’ve got a qualifying i-device, then you’re set.

So, say I’m reading one of my esteemed colleagues on Yahoo Tech in Safari at home on my iPad.

As I’m leaving for work, I want to switch to my iPhone. I’ll look to the bottom-left corner of the lock screen on my iPhone, and an opaque Safari icon will be there, waiting for me, without any effort on my part. (These icons appear whenever you’re using one of the above Apple apps on a nearby device).

I’ll place my finger on top of it and slowly pull the screen up.

After I’ve entered my passcode or scanned my fingerprint, I’m in. My screen automatically opens to the exact page I was reading in Safari.

My only complaint is that Handoff is not yet tuned in enough to know how far down on a page you are. So if you’re in the midst of a longer piece, you might have to do some scrolling to find your place.

Handing off between an i-device and a Mac
Anytime you’re doing something on your iPhone or iPad, your Mac will recognize it, and a little device icon will appear on the app in question, on your Dock’s left side.

So imagine you’ve started an email in the Mail app on your iPhone, perhaps on the subway or as you were sitting in your car in traffic.

You finally get home, log in to your computer, and the Mail app has an outline of your phone on it. Just click it and you’ll be brought to the last draft you had open on your phone.

Again, this might take a few seconds, depending on whether you’ve remembered to connect to Wi-Fi and enabled Bluetooth on both devices. That waiting sort of kills the buzz of what you may have imagined to be a futuristic experience, but it’s still easier than the alternative: emailing a link, texting yourself, or whatever roundabout method you’ve come up with to solve this problem in the past.

That’s all. Now go try it out for yourself. It might just save you some copy/pasting. And tell us: What other uses for Handoff have you found so far?

Follow Alyssa Bereznak on Twitter or email her here.