'Continuity Activation Tool' Enables Handoff on Older Macs

[Cloudane]

Ah thank you thank you, I've tweaked mine already but it's a pain to do (and would probably be required every update), so I'm glad someone's done a tool.

Has it been tried on Hacs as well?

 

[designaholic]

Planned obsolescence just like 2004's Dirty little secret of iPod battery life being as long as Apples support for hardware - too short!

Sure, we all know tech companies can be sneaky at times. But switching off perfectly capable un-obsolete hardware via software in this way is idiotic.

Ultimately not having Continuity would certainly not make me want to buy a new MBA. Nice to have, but it's no retina screen.

 

[AlecZ]

This fits in with the list:
- No AirDrop for "unsupported" Macs... without a hack
- No Siri on iPhone 4... without a Cydia tweak
- No video camera on iPhone 3G and 2G... except with Cydia app
- Lack of Mountain Lion support for old Macs, same with other versions
- Countless iOS 7 and 8 features that don't work on one-gen-outdated iPhones for no real reason
- Inability to downgrade iOS and inability to downgrade OS X below what the Mac came with
- The dreaded Seagate hard drives in iMacs

I know it's good for some things to be controlled (as I would not recommend that most people jailbreak even though I do), but some of these limitations are purely to make people buy new hardware, and it's the no. 2 thing about Apple that ticks me off. No. 1 is when they randomly remove features or drop software that I use. I still can't find a replacement for iWeb that works in Mavericks.

 

[Boomish69]

It's not crying. It's anger. I paid $2000 for my MBA three years ago. It still runs like new. It has the hardware to do this easily. If Apple has a good technical reason to exclude the 2011 MBA I'd love to hear it. It would take about 2 minutes to build a technical post on their support site with the explanation.

Absolutely, some people seem to think a computer more than 3 years old is obsolete! WTF We all know Apple do their utmost not to support old devices, because it helps them sell newer ones, but they could make an effort now & again.

 

[Spectrum]

In my mind, the problem isn't so much that you have to buy the RAM from Apple, it's the fact that you have to decide *at time of purchase* how much RAM you *might* need in the future.

Oh: and the fact that RAM prices in the future (when you do need it) will be a lot cheaper.

Like I said in the soldered ram thread, maybe this Mini is an interim release, and the new, thinner Mini will be coming out alongside Broadwell. But until that time comes, it seems like Apple did it just so you'd have to buy your ram from them.

 

[DJMeat]

BTLE (aka: 4.0). That's pretty obvious if you've even remotely been paying attention.

The 2011 MBA *has* BTLE, but Continuity was disabled anyway. But you'd know that if you've even remotely been paying attention.

 

[roadbloc]

Can't believe they crippled capable older devices on purpose.

You can't? Apple do this all the time. If anything, I expected this.

 

[DJMeat]

Just been looking for the card needed to upgrade my early'11 MBP. Two weeks ago when I first started looking into upgrading (but was weeks from payday) this was £15...

Price gouging bastards.

 

[Cloudane]

They're pretty evil when it comes to leaving "old" devices (i.e. anything more than 2 generations out) out in the cold. Unfortunately they know they can get away with it, for the most part. Look at the alternatives: Linux, Windows, Android.

 

[nocturnum]

The fact that you cannot use BT 4.0 adapter speaks for itself.

Timmy seems to be the the next Johny Sculley, albeit with some new features.

 

[DJMeat]

The fact that you cannot use BT 4.0 adapter speaks for itself.

Timmy seems to be the the next Johny Sculley, albeit with some new features.

To be fair, it could lead to all kinds of confusion if the dongle got knocked out or whatever.

 

[Kroner]

Just been looking for the card needed to upgrade my early'11 MBP. Two weeks ago when I first started looking into upgrading (but was weeks from payday) this was £15...

Price gouging bastards.

Woah, that was quick to happen.

My MBP is getting a bit old, so I do feel a bit adventurous. For now while waiting for the price to go down after the initial excitement. I think I will take some time to decide if I want to tinker that much with my MBP.

 

[The Phazer]

There's a reason why Apple doesn't have Handoff enabled on capable macs: Encryption.

The 2011 MacBook Air and 2011 Mac Mini has Bluetooth 4.0 LE, but doesn't have the proper chip to help encrypt the handoff signals to limit it to matching devices with matching Apple ID. So while Handoff may work with the enabler, the signal is not encrypted and is very open to attacks.

Without the proper encryption authentication, there are high chance that some non-matching iOS devices nearby may be able to pick up the handoff signal. That can mean disaster in terms of privacy.

(Imagine you were searching XXX content on your mac, but you decided that you may be comfortable watching it on your phone, so you hand it off to your phone. But, since that mac is sending unencrypted handoff signal, junior using his iPad may accidentally see your XXX content if bluetooth is turned on and has the compatible iOS device)

Basically, for handoff to work safely, Bluetooth LE signal has to be encrypted, and Older Macs and USB Bluetooth Dongles don't have proper chip to encrypt to signals

(note that encryption chip I'm talking about is proprietary)

This is interesting, but I don't think it is correct.

There's no dedicated encryption chip involved here. The BT chip doesn't perform this function (or at least they are identical between the 2011 Air and the 2012 Air, so it would still have to come down to software drivers which Apple could and should fix).

So the only place a dedicated hardware decryption function could occur is in the main CPU itself.

But again, this leads to another issue - the 2011 MBA has a processor Trusted Execution Environment (and we know it does, because it's used for Fairplay DRM, hence why Rhapsody doesn't work on the 2011 Air but Silverlight-less Netflix does). The 2010 MBA doesn't. So again, there's no hardware distinction there to rule out the 2011 MBA.

It is interesting that you've established that this doesn't seem to be performing the function on the 2011 Air though. But that strongly suggests the reason is because Apple hasn't updated the CPU driver API in software. Which is... still their fault, actually.

 

[bbeagle]

WTF We all know Apple do their utmost not to support old devices, because it helps them sell newer ones, but they could make an effort now & again.

Supporting old devices vs. upgrading old devices to new features are different things. Apple does a great job supporting old devices with bug fixes and security updates.

Why should you expect every old device you own to get all the new features? It doesn't work like that anywhere else. Google only promises 18 months of updates on Android devices.

 

[nocturnum]

To be fair, it could lead to all kinds of confusion if the dongle got knocked out or whatever.

To be fair, I believe you have not seen any of these dongles, because they are very small and nearly flush with USB port on MBP.

 

[rdlink]

BTLE (aka: 4.0). That's pretty obvious if you've even remotely been paying attention...



Take it however you want, but your 2011 MBA does everything today that it did on the day you bought it...

Yep. And now, because I ran a script that Apple did not see fit to put the effort into my 2011 MBA will do exactly the same thing in Yosemite as a 2012 MBA, or a 2013 MBA, or a 2014 MBA. It allows me to use Handoff. Enabling it on my 2011 has done nothing to performance or stability. The needed hardware was already built in. It works fine.

So tell me, what exactly is your justification for defending Apple's decision here?

Fact is, I bought the 2010 MBA when it was introduced, because it was a great machine. But it had some limitations. When the 2011 came out Apple addressed those limitations, so I sold my 2010 and bought the 2011. I did so with the idea of "future proofing" my laptop, and keeping it for several years. The idea that Apple would decide not to provide a function on my 2011 that I have now proven will work without issue is pretty disappointing, and they quite frankly owe me an explanation.

Geez, it still looks like new. My expensive AppleCare warranty just ran out on this thing. Am I supposed to throw it away now?

 

[biocide]

Will it work on Mavericks?

This might have been answered in the thread already, apologies if so. And it might be a stupid question. But will this hack also work on mavericks? Or only on yosemite? I'm asking since I'm trying to avoid updating to Yosemite for as long as I can... (I really don't like the flat design, that's why).

On the other hand, when I think of it: My 4S is still on iOS 7, and there's no way I'm crippling it by updating to iOS 8. Maybe there will be a jailbreak hack for this later for iOS 7 as well.

 

[kissmo]

This fits in with the list:
- No AirDrop for "unsupported" Macs... without a hack
- No Siri on iPhone 4... without a Cydia tweak
- No video camera on iPhone 3G and 2G... except with Cydia app
- Lack of Mountain Lion support for old Macs, same with other versions
- Countless iOS 7 and 8 features that don't work on one-gen-outdated iPhones for no real reason
- Inability to downgrade iOS and inability to downgrade OS X below what the Mac came with
- The dreaded Seagate hard drives in iMacs

I know it's good for some things to be controlled (as I would not recommend that most people jailbreak even though I do), but some of these limitations are purely to make people buy new hardware, and it's the no. 2 thing about Apple that ticks me off. No. 1 is when they randomly remove features or drop software that I use. I still can't find a replacement for iWeb that works in Mavericks.

I'm on the same page like you are.
I do believe that removing features so that people upgrade to newer HW is a crappy trick from Apple and they do it quite often. In the same time there may be in the back some technical requirements that may set up limitations - I am pretty sure Handoff is possible on 4s and an iMac 2011 - but they really want people to pay for upgrades.

Regarding iWeb - I am somehow on the same page as you are but I do understand Apple.
There are countless companies offering website building services online and they do a pretty good job at it.
I do believe Apple could focus more on delivering an iWeb app that would blow things but I think their focus is on other direction.

Apple is not anymore in the frame where Digital Media Software is developed by them. By Digital Media - I mean - video, photo, web design... etc.

They killed many apps and projects like Aperture, iWeb and replaced them. I think they focus on the OS and HW and integration and things like this to provide a platform for Adobe and the rest.
Maybe I am wrong - but it's what Apple is doing now.
I think with their talent they would build a very nice iWeb ... but iGuess that will not happen in the near future...

 

[rdlink]

Supporting old devices vs. upgrading old devices to new features are different things. Apple does a great job supporting old devices with bug fixes and security updates.

Why should you expect every old device you own to get all the new features? It doesn't work like that anywhere else. Google only promises 18 months of updates on Android devices.

But if the hardware will support the feature, which my installation of this script has proven it will what would be the justification for not supporting it? I'm perfectly willing to listen to Apple's explanation for it. It would take them minutes to post a page about it on their support website.

Your Android comparison is only making my point, frankly. What is Apple's big boast every time they have a keynote? It's that they have 90%+ of their users on the latest OS, and Android is totally fragmented. Why has Apple chosen to purposely cut 2011 MBAs out of the herd, when the hardware clearly supports the feature?

I agree that Apple typically does a good job of continuing to support older devices. But not offering a feature that will obviously run without issue on a particular piece of hardware is a slap in the face. And it's not like Apple is getting caught off guard here. I have been on the developer site since June, and the lack of Handoff on the 2011 MBA has been a major discussion since the beginning.

Finally, comparing feature support on a phone with that on a laptop or desktop computer is ridiculous. Smartphones are a fast moving, relatively young technology, and advancement intervals are measured in days. Laptop and desktop computers have been a mature technology for quite a while. Apple has basically not changed the design of the MBA for 4 years. And they haven't done more than incremental changes on the inside. Aside from more memory they have not given me any good reason to replace my MBA since I bought it. Yet they arbitrarily decide not to let me have a feature that will clearly work on the machine. Poor form, Apple.

 

[Jarman74]

Why should you expect every old device you own to get all the new features?

Not every old device, but every device still plenty capable of handling all the new features with little effort on Apple's side.

I don't get my hopes up, but I would like that this story got big enough to make them feel compelled to say something on the matter. If they believe that a handful of additional lines of code can't be included in 10.10.1 to unlock Handoff on those machines (and they would get only praise for that), I would love to know why.

 

[bbeagle]

I agree that Apple typically does a good job of continuing to support older devices. But not offering a feature that will obviously run without issue on a particular piece of hardware is a slap in the face.

I agree with your point in theory.

But what happens is that Apple must support the old hardware, something that nobody wants to do. Think about it - if you're a software engineer at Apple, do you want to be working on the latest technology - writing new software and fixing bugs for iPad Airs, or do you want to be working with the limitations of the iPad 1 and fixing bugs, and writing software updates?

I think it would be hard to have everyone 'on the team' while having hundreds of engineers working on old projects. Plus, it's not financially worth it for Apple. You're paying people to work on old things, encouraging people NOT to buy the latest things, and it's a net loss for the company. Shareholders would not like that at all.

It's just the reality of the business.

----------

Not every old device, but every device still plenty capable of handling all the new features with little effort on Apple's side.

I agree, if there was minimal effort on Apple's part, they should support old hardware.

But it still means that Apple would have to have old devices in-house to test potential bugs on, and I'm not sure what the cost is. Apple obviously feels that the cost of doing this is not worth it.

 

[opfreak]

They're pretty evil when it comes to leaving "old" devices (i.e. anything more than 2 generations out) out in the cold. Unfortunately they know they can get away with it, for the most part. Look at the alternatives: Linux, Windows, Android.

The know they can get away with it because apple customers are too scared to go anywhere else. Apple planted big seeds of FUD, and now keeps everyone in.

And people dont know better, because why would apple do something bad, when they keep saying they are the good guys.

 

[RRmalvado]

Yep. And now, because I ran a script that Apple did not see fit to put the effort into my 2011 MBA will do exactly the same thing in Yosemite as a 2012 MBA, or a 2013 MBA, or a 2014 MBA. It allows me to use Handoff. Enabling it on my 2011 has done nothing to performance or stability. The needed hardware was already built in. It works fine.

So tell me, what exactly is your justification for defending Apple's decision here?

Fact is, I bought the 2010 MBA when it was introduced, because it was a great machine. But it had some limitations. When the 2011 came out Apple addressed those limitations, so I sold my 2010 and bought the 2011. I did so with the idea of "future proofing" my laptop, and keeping it for several years. The idea that Apple would decide not to provide a function on my 2011 that I have now proven will work without issue is pretty disappointing, and they quite frankly owe me an explanation.

Geez, it still looks like new. My expensive AppleCare warranty just ran out on this thing. Am I supposed to throw it away now?

I'm in the same boat as you, I didn't care much about the Continuity feature as I don't even use it on my 2013 rMBP, but my 2011 MBA should support the feature.

Essentially, don't expect a reply... there is no justification to be had, just another Applelogist with Stockholm Syndrome.

 

[Themacdaddyios]

I really do not understand why people are freaking out about their older macs not having every single feature of yosemite.The fact is that this is a new OS and it is free!,if apple had charged you for this OS like in the days of mountain lion and your older mac had been left out of all the features then i would understand the complaints.Most of us had used windows prior to macs and most if not all kept the OS that came with the computer till the day it died.

 

[RRmalvado]

I really do not understand why people are freaking out about their older macs not having every single feature of yosemite.The fact is that this is a new OS and it is free!,if apple had charged you for this OS like in the days of mountain lion and your older mac had been left out of all the features then i would understand the complaints.Most of us had used windows prior to macs and most if not all kept the OS that came with the computer till the day it died.

Nobody is freaking out... and nobody is concerned about spending $19.99 for an OS upgrade. The point is being missed by you completely. Yes, the OS upgrade is free but that doesn't mean that features should be stripped because it was a free upgrade.