Will Your Mac And iDevice Hardware Support Handoff in OS X Yosemite And iOS 8?

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One of the marquee new features in forthcoming OS X 10.10 Yosemite and iOS 8 is Handoff, which will allow users to transparently switch between two supported devices and pick up right where they left o on the other machine. Handoff will also facilitate making phone calls using a Mac via an iPhone, open documents on any iOS device, and send/receive SMS texts.

Sounds cool. However, while my late-2008 unibody MacBook and iPad 2 are both nominally supported by Yosemite and iOS 8 respectively, neither is compatible with Handoff because it requires Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy support, which neither of those models does.

For Handoff, minimum hardware support is the mid-2011 MacBook Air; mid-2012 MacBook Pro; mid-2012 Retina MacBook Pro; late 2012 iMac; mid 2011,Mac mini; 2013 Mac Pro; early 2012 iPad third generation; and late-2011 iPhone 4S.

On a Mac you can confirm whether you have Bluetooth 4.0 LE or not by selecting “About this Mac” from the Apple Menu and drilling down through “More Info”, System Report , Bluetooth under Hardware on the left sidebar, and then “LMP Version” on the right pane. If your Mac supports Bluetooth 4, LMP Version should read 063 . If it doesn’t you don t have a Bluetooth 4.0 LE and are excluded from Handoff.

A tip of the hat to Stabley Times’ Jason Tucker, whose report you can read at:
http://bit.ly/1qDNYvb

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