Monday 17 November 2014

Apple, Handoff My Sorrows


Recently, I've managed to test out Handoff with Pocket, the app that saves a copy of a webpage for offline reading. While reading on the Mac, I had wanted to move to a different spot in the house. Being a small house, this different spot is only less than 5 meters away but in a different room.

Even though mini, my Mac is still desktop class so what better time to test Handoff by bringing the iPhone along. To my pleasant surprise the Pocket icon appeared on the bottom left corner of the lock screen. I just needed to swipe that icon upwards (similar to swiping the bottom right camera icon to take a quick photo) and voila! Pocket launched and I resumed my reading.

However, I grieve because I didn't know that Handoff is not supported on my iPad generation 3 but works on the first iPad Mini! You know, I tried to put it behind me when Apple released the 4th generation iPad just six months after the 3rd generation with a much more powerful processor and a Lightning port. Oh the pain!

Handoff and Instant Hotspot

Handoff and Instant Hotspot are supported by the following Mac models, and require OS X Yosemite:
  • MacBook Air (Mid 2012 and later)
  • MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 and later)
  • iMac (Late 2012 and later)
  • Mac mini (Late 2012 and later)
  • Mac Pro (Late 2013)
Handoff is supported by the following iOS devices and requires iOS 8. Instant Hotspot requires one of these iPhone or iPad devices with cellular connectivity and iOS 8.1. Instant Hotspot also requires Personal Hotspot service through your carrier.
  • Phone 5 or later
  • iPhone 4s (sharing iPhone calls only)
  • iPad (4th generation), iPad Air, iPad Air 2
  • iPad mini, iPad mini with Retina display, iPad mini 3
  • iPod touch (5th generation)

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