'Continuity Activation Tool' Enables Handoff on Older Macs

[marc.garcia]

I got it up and running and man I can now use AirDrop with iOS devices with no problem. I'm very disappointed Apple attempted to play unfair with us (I also have a Mid-2011 MBA) and I don't know if they may block this in further updates.

Hi there,
I'm experiencing something a little weird. When I try to transfer a file using AirDrop, it works like a charm in one direction (Mac to iOS) but it does not work the other way around. I don't see my Mac from my iPhone.

Anyone can comment on this?

 

[Bossworld]

Hi, just applied this to my mid 2011 mac air, works well. but

i can airdrop to my phone fine, but i can't airdrop from my phone (5s) to my mac, any ideas? mac doesn't appear in airdrop

cheers

I seem to have the same problem, though in fairness I don't think I'd ever tried it before running this utility. Instant hotspot and hand off both work fine now on my 2011 MBA.

On my iPhone I had to reselect myself as my contact, which worked to fix it between an iPhone 5 and a iPad Mini. The mac can occasionally see my phone, but when you send a file to it, it just sits there saying waiting.

The iPhone can't see the mac.

Incidentally, Safari is now absolutely crawling on the Macbook, particularly on MacRumors.

 

[Cloudane]

The know they can get away with it because apple customers are too scared to go anywhere else.

I don't know - I went elsewhere for about 3 years. The freedom was there but it wasn't quite as good overall - and at least on phones, the situation with updates was actually worse as handset manufacturers have to work to port the OS update to their phone and are only really interested in doing so for the latest model. (Nexus excepted, if you don't mind the choice between last year's technology or a 6" mega-phablet.)

They do however push the boundaries of how badly they can treat customers with >3 year old devices before undermining all the other advantages of their stuff and sending them elsewhere. That is true, and it's a bit more annoying with computers where you tend to want them to last 4, 5+ years. Though they never stop anything working, to be fair, and you can always just wipe it and put Linux on if you're a masochistthat concerned about it

 

[Tech198]

"Users should exercise caution when using the Continuity Activation Tool, as it moves around low level files and there's a possibility it could cause problems. A backup is recommended before attempting to install the tool. "

Weather u tell users or not,, there's always gonna be trouble. That's a known fact.

It's only "in the hope" users will understand. But that could be for anything, including backups.

 

[DrDice]

Anyone who can tell what exact adapter is needed for an 27" Mid 2011 iMac?

 

[garylapointe]

And yet it clearly doesn't work for some 2011 MBAs.

And maybe that's why it was left out, because it doesn't work on all of them (assuming you mean mid-2011 MBA).

It would be be SO nice if in Apple's tech/support notes it said something like "Mid-2011 MacBook Air models do have the BT normally needed to support this feature but some other compatibility concerns with _____(fill_in_the_blank)_______ causes this to to not work consistently so we are choosing to not enable this".

Gary

 

[clunkmess]

How can I test and see if this tool worked on my MacBook Air 2011?

 

[marc.garcia]

Can this be reverted in case Apple decided to include mid-2011 MBAs in further Yosemite updates?

 

[Murl]

When I ran the activation tool on my mid 2011 macbook air it said the bluetooth was "Not Ok." Is there another way to get this to work?

 

[tennisproha]

The GitHub repo has updated the compatibility list.

The 2010 Mac Mini apparently requires a BCM94331PCIEBT4CAX. I bought one which is not compatible with my 2010 13 inch MBP. I'll be listing it on eBay once it is delivered on Monday.

Thanks for the link!

 

[mcapanelli]

Lol,"waaa my macbook doesn't have airdrop waaaa i want my airdrop ,waa I'm going to keep thrashing the store till i get my airdrop",you are the silly child chucking your toys out of your pram and spitting out your dummy and wailing and rolling on the floor because you can't have something you didn't pay for on your 2011 macbook ,so mate you are the child ,a retarded one.Now run along silly kid

Wow boy you are trolling hard. Maybe after you clear the sand from your mangina you can cite your source, unless you're getting your information from the euphoria that comes after a good slap session while staring at that picture of Steve Jobs right above your bed.

 

[landi.erik]

Answered previously

Anyone who can tell what exact adapter is needed for an 27" Mid 2011 iMac?

See Post number 282, I broke down the parts and where to purchase. In addition see OSX WIFI for other adapters for the mac pro, etc. Hope that helps.

 

[UncleSchnitty]

And maybe that's why it was left out, because it doesn't work on all of them (assuming you mean mid-2011 MBA).

It would be be SO nice if in Apple's tech/support notes it said something like "Mid-2011 MacBook Air models do have the BT normally needed to support this feature but some other compatibility concerns with _____(fill_in_the_blank)_______ causes this to to not work consistently so we are choosing to not enable this".

Gary

It does work with all of them, Ive troubleshooted with many many many people and the ones that didnt work ended up being user error at one point or another. Another thing is sometimes after "enable handoff" shows under general you either have to wait for devices to "handshake" or you can sign out of iCloud and reboot a bunch of times to force the "handshake".
Airdrop also works fine with the 2011Mba as well but you either need to make your computer a contact or on the computer change "Allow me to be discovered by" to everyone.
People seem to have a misconception about how handoff/airdrop/continuity works. This isn't a "hack" its simply erasing apples code that says "do not allow these machines to use handoff" nothing more.

 

[grahamperrin]

More than four months of pre-release testing by Apple with customers and developers, plus an unknown length of time before that, testing by Apple alone.

2014-10-23 18:30: a news item is posted, with links to seven other resources. I haven't begun to count how many hundreds or thousands of words were referenced.

2014-10-23 18:33: a reader is in disbelief. This rushed first comment becomes the most popular.​

Less than three minutes – how deep was that analysis?

Consider the first response elsewhere:

@MacRumors beware with it. Restoring a copy of TM here

Can't believe … capable older devices …

Maybe other users of some of those 'capable' devices will also – after a reasonable period of testing – find that things are not so rosy.

 

[andreyirra]

What I dont get is why Airdrop uses Wifi between Macs but it needs to use BTle if you want to transfer something between a MAc and iOS. It should be the same thing.

 

[Themacdaddyios]

Wow boy you are trolling hard. Maybe after you clear the sand from your mangina you can cite your source, unless you're getting your information from the euphoria that comes after a good slap session while staring at that picture of Steve Jobs right above your bed.

LOl,did you read what you wrote before submitting reply?,so you need a source to inform you that a 2011 MacBook Pro still does what it did when it was shipped with lion or mountain lion with extra now that it is running yosemite?.

----------

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.

I would even understand if this was a paid OS and they are feeling robbed after paying the full wack as the person getting getting all the features.Plus these new feature are features we've all lived without since we bought our macs.

 

[MacVidCards]

People seem to have a misconception about how handoff/airdrop/continuity works. This isn't a "hack" its simply erasing apples code that says "do not allow these machines to use handoff" nothing more.

I'm guessing the Appologists are trying to ignore or gloss over this. The code being patched gives a pass to certain machines that DON'T have wireless AC and allows them to use the AC kext and other code then EXCLUDES machines that have the same hardware. This isn't accidental or incidental. Someone at Apple made a conscious effort to artifially create a distinction.

The paid Apple shills would be better employed singing Cupertino's praises elsewhere, there is no actual defense for this.

 

[UncleSchnitty]

What I dont get is why Airdrop uses Wifi between Macs but it needs to use BTle if you want to transfer something between a MAc and iOS. It should be the same thing.

Large file transfers are shoty over Bluetooth. Having airdrop work over wifi is more stable. bt is fast and energy efficient for small transfers(the info for handoff). So basically they are utilizing the best tool for the job, that makes sense

 

[grahamperrin]

… technical reason to do it.

If that's the case I'd expect Apple to post a support article explaining.

It's less Apple's style to publish extensive documentation on why A might not work with B and/or C in any combination of environments X, Y and Z; and so on.

It's more Apple's style to make things just work at a future date.

 

[rdlink]

It's less Apple's style to publish extensive documentation on why A might not work with B and/or C in any combination of environments X, Y and Z; and so on.

It's more Apple's style to make things just work at a future date.

I think you're right. They will likely quietly enable it in the near future. But blog posts will not hurt in making that happen...

 

[laflores]

I just came to say thanks a lot for the Continuity tool. I have an Early 2011 MacBook Pro that didn't have the required card. I bought the card in eBay, I ran the tool, and now I can use all the features. I had to reset iCloud in my Mac, but after that, it all works!
Thanks a lot!

 

[Bleh5]

MacBook Air, Late 2010

As soon as I saw this, I went ahead and bought the BCM94360CS2 wireless card off of eBay. Received it today, opened up my MBA to find out that the antenna connectors are in a different location. Furthermore, the card itself is longer than what is in the MBA and will not fit.

Figure I'd save some people some grief in trying.

 

[grahamperrin]

Thoughts

… blog posts will not hurt in making that happen...

True, I don't imagine development within Apple being hindered by blogs and the like.

I can understand the excitement around a highly desirable feature but (with respect) I sense, in this topic, some overexcitement around what is essentially an issue with documentation.

I am recently uncharacteristically harsh in my criticism of a few areas of Apple's work, and those areas include documentation (HIG, new and old, in particular), but I reckon that the current gaps in public knowledge around continuity do not deserve great harshness.

-----

Without wishing to single out the following post (there may be many with similar sentiments) …

In support of my point about why Apple didn't enable the feature even though MR readers think that they could have …

Consider the number of months (above) multiplied by up to a million public beta testers in wildly varied test environments. The automated and other feedback from all of that, to Apple. Imagine that mass of data, processed in systematic ways to highlight areas of explained, part-explained or not yet explainable troubles with continuity.

Compare that lot with the test results from individuals here. I assume that some of these individuals tested both pre- and post-release (relatively broad experience), and some of those individuals might have tested comprehensively and with expertise, but it simply can't match the richness of data that I expect Apple to continue working with.

Piecemeal, partial explanations from Apple could be more frustrating than satisfying, so I'll encourage people to take a calm and fairly methodical approach to this.

HTH

(Side note: I don't expect to find time to read all of this topic – just disorganised skipping through, so if I overlook an important point: sorry.)

 

[dokterdok]

My attempt has proven that it does not work in every Mid-2011 MBA.

Could you please give the latest Continuity Activation Tool version a shot? it's v.1.0.2 and was released yesterday. It includes a fix that addresses the symptoms you described, which have been reported for some 2011 Airs and minis.

 

[lottomotto]

NOt working early 2011 MBP 13"

Hello,

I already had the BCM94331PCIEBT4CAX.

Downloaded the tool, executed, received a list of "OK"

But after rebootin I still get "handsoff supported NO"
And I don't have the option to activate it in System preferences/General

Any Idea of what could I try?

I also reset PRAM and SMC.. but nothing

EDIT:
Solved could have been the newest version of the tool or the fact that I waited the reboot (which took long) this time. The last tim, I thought it hanged and I manually rebooted