How to Set Up Handoff in iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite 1

How to Set Up Handoff in iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite

Apple first announced iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite in early June, during the company’s annual WWDC developers conference, and a new feature called Handoff allows users to start working on one device and finish on the other. Here’s how to set it up.

Handoff is one of the biggest features that Apple has launched with OS X Yosemite and while it may not be useful for everyone, we can see it being a huge hit with the majority of Apple users.

iOS 8 came with Handoff support when it was released in September, but given that OS X Yosemite wasn’t officially released until last week, iOS 8 users can now use Handoff.

Essentially, the feature should be enabled by default in both iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, but you can check out this quick guide that shows you how to double-check (or make sure the feature is on) and get started.

Setting Handoff

The first thing you’ll want to do when installing Handoff is to enable the feature on your Mac running OS X Yosemite. Unfortunately, not all Macs can support Handoff as it requires Bluetooth 4.0 LE. Most Macs 2011 and older do not have Bluetooth 4.0, but to see if your Mac is compatible, click the Apple logo in the upper-right corner of the screen and then click . From there, click and click in the sidebar. See Handoff needs to be 0x6 for it to work on your Mac.

If it says so on your Mac, you’re good to go. Follow the rest of the guide to continue with the Handoff setup.

The first step in setting up Handoff is to enable it on your Mac. Follow these quick steps:

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Handoff is now enabled on your Mac and you must keep Bluetooth turned on to continue using it.

Next, we will enable Handoff on your iOS 8 device.

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Everything should be ready and you don’t need to pair your MacBook and iPhone or iPad together. After all, they must be on the same WiFi network and both devices must be signed into the same iCloud account.

How to Use Handoff

Currently, Handoff only works with a few Apple-built apps and some third-party apps, but we think the list of supported apps will grow over time.

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Handoff actually works mostly automatically and a single click or tap is all it takes to finish working on something on a different device.

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To switch to your Mac while viewing something on your iPhone or iPad, an added dock icon will appear and clicking it will bring up all the activities you have done on your iPhone. In this case, we were watching a website in Safari on our iPhone when a Chrome dock icon appeared on your MacBook to let us know we could take over the Mac. OS X Yosemite uses the default web browser set on your Mac when this happens.

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To switch from your Mac to your iPhone or iPad, you will see a small icon in the lower right corner of your iOS lock screen with that app you have open on your Mac. Simply swipe up on this icon to start working on your iOS 8 device.

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