Yosemite 'Hand Off' Feature Limited to Macs with Bluetooth LE

pk7 said:

So does this mean my Early 2011 15" MacBook Pro won't be able to use my iPhone as a relay for SMS and voice calls, or is that separate from where the devices allow you to continue certain tasks on the other?

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Awww. That's a shame if true. Hopefully the calls/texts feature will still work.

east85 said:

Good thing Google Voice rings on all my devices regardless.

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not even remotely pertaining to what handoff does. please try to pay attention.

proline said:

You're going to use a 2011 Machine in 2017? Good for you grandpa, but you won't be using the latest software or OS features.

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Yeah that's what I'm trying to tell myself haha but if the new features of newer incompatible OS's become great enough I'll upgrade earlier. The high resale value of Mac's make it easier to get decent cash out of an older machine to upgrade as well.

I'd like to point out that the source for this doesn't actually know if the cutoff will be the Bluetooth 4.0/LE standard.

Translated from the website:

Handoff is one of the features of Yosemite 10.10 which is not yet officially released in the current beta version. However, it is possible that Bluetooth LE or Bluetooth 4.0 could be a prerequisite for the use of services such as Airdrop.

If Bluetooth 4.0 should be certified as a condition for the use of continuity, the following Macs would not be able to use any of these new features of Yosemite's Continuity, such as Handoff.

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And later...

We would again like to point out that this is by no means a certainty that Apple would make these features require Bluetooth 4.0 or BT LE. However, if they do - and this, in our opinion, would absolutely be possible - then a lot of the compatible Macs before 2012 and the iPad 2 would no longer benefit from features of Airdrop, Handoff and other Continuity features. What do you think?

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Crap.

At present, it is controlled by a plist check that is assigned at install by MachineID. Doesn't mean that it will stay that way.

Menel said:

Adding a dongle isn't going to work. Yosemite probably checks the hardware revision your system is on.

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Absolutely Brilliant. Nice one Apple.
Are you actually serious?


So irrespective of adding the hardware it still won't work?

Its OK I don't need it anyways I have a Nexus....

(Still would've been nice to have it tho)

Why do this over Bluetooth instead of Wifi?

i really don't get it. Mac mini is the cheapest mac, but mac mini 2011 can and iMac 2011 can't. Is not fair

Piggie said:

Absolutely Brilliant. Nice one Apple.
Are you actually serious?


So irrespective of adding the hardware it still won't work?

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adding hardware won't work, or else it makes the the chart a moot point.

I was never going to use the feature but I'm still kinda annoyed. Couldn't it work over WiFi?

ugru said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence

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no. if handoff requires Bluetooth 4.0 LE, this is not planned obsolescence. it just means the damn technology didn't exist yet.

I was worrying about this. So I thought I'd try and get around it with a USB Bluetooth 4 LE adapter.

mrxak said:

Ah, so now we know how this works, it's through Bluetooth. I was kind of hoping it'd involve being on a LAN together. I guess my current MacBook Pro won't work. That's a shame.

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I thought the something too. Why not use a LAN, at least as a fall back. Is Apple just being cheap with their engineering hours using the LAN (wiFi) would add not extra hardware to either device.

My guess is the reason for this is to give people an inceptive to buy newer Macs. The non-feature s likely for business not technical reasons.

So from Apple chat support, i got the answer that there are 2 ways to do that.

1 Over the same wifi network, every device connected to the same user in icloud
2 Over Bluetooth 4.0 and the same icloud user on all devices

Can some one recheck?

TheRainKing said:

I was never going to use the feature but I'm still kinda annoyed. Couldn't it work over WiFi?

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As I just said, I'm sure the reason is business based, not technology based.

proline said:

So does FaceTime. This has nothing to do with that, please try to follow the conversation. In fact, the new features allowing you to send SMS messages and place regular phone calls from your Mac DO work without bluetooth LE, my 2010 MBP proves that. Those are features that go far beyond anything Google Voice can offer Mac users.

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I'm guessing you haven't used it, all of the features you mentioned are features of Google Voice, including calling and texting from Mac. Facetime is more like Skype than Google Voice, which is an actual number. Being that it offers the same end functionality, it has everything to do with it. Regardless, please save yourself the embarrassment by further pretending you're even remotely familiar with the service. It's quite obvious you have no idea what it is or what it provides.

With that said I'm happy to see Apple implementing that convenience within the ecosystem.

Well, this is now my official excuse for upgrading my early 2011 MBP (which is actually working just fine) for a new one, when the Broadwell upgrade is released.

pk7 said:

So does this mean my Early 2011 15" MacBook Pro won't be able to use my iPhone as a relay for SMS and voice calls, or is that separate from where the devices allow you to continue certain tasks on the other?

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Same exact model as you.

I think SMS/Voice Calls will still work. Handoff is explicitly over bluetooth and Apple (rightly) wants this to happen over Bluetooth LE. The SMS/Voice likely works over wi-fi.

There's a very practical reason for the difference.

Handoff implies you were working with one device and now you're near another (iPhone to desktop, iPad to iPhone, etc.) and Bluetooth LE is perfect for this use scenario.

Answering phones and receiving SMS implies you're in your home, your phone could be in the other room, and you need to reply or answer from another device. Bluetooth would run into problems handling such use distances but routing things through your Wi-Fi network is a breeze.

So TL;DR: SMS/Voice is likely over wi-fi (or a network, in case your Mac is connected via ethernet) and is likely coming to all devices getting Yosemite.

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ADDENDUM:
While Handoff is a nice feature, likely most people will not upgrade for this feature alone. I mean honestly, you start a draft or work on a document, you want to spend another $1k just to have the ability to click a dynamic link to open the work on your Mac?

My early 2011 MBP should last till 2017 (to answer another post), only last year did I retire the 2006 MBP we had and upgraded the wife to a 2013 MBA.

ugru said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence

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Was apple supposed to invent a time machine and put Bluetooth LE in 2009 machines so you can use the most up to date features on their future OS that will come out in 5 years?