Android’s answer to Apple’s Handoff is coming, and here’s how it’ll work

One area where iOS beats Android is its deep integration with MacBooks, which is to be expected since Apple controls both ecosystems. While tools exist to connect your Android phone to a Windows PC, these solutions often fall short of Apple’s integrations. This gap exists because Android and Windows are developed by different companies with competing interests, which complicates the creation of native, deeply integrated features.

For example, Apple’s Handoff feature lets you seamlessly start a task on one device and pick it up on another. Google doesn’t currently offer a direct equivalent for Android, but mounting evidence suggests one is in the works. This new feature appears to be part of Google’s efforts to bring Android to PCs, which would enable the company to build more powerful cross-device experiences.

While many details about Android’s version of Handoff remain unknown, we’ve uncovered clues about its implementation within the operating system. Based on our findings, here’s how we think it will work.

You’re reading the Authority Insights Newsletter, a weekly newsletter that reveals some new facet of Android that hasn’t been reported on anywhere else. If you’re looking for the latest scoops, the hottest leaks, and breaking news on Google’s Android operating system and other mobile tech topics, then we’ve got you covered.

Subscribe here to get this post delivered to your email inbox every Saturday.

Why a seamless Handoff experience has worked for Apple but not Google or Microsoft

Back in July, we shared evidence that Google is working on a new “Handoff” feature for Android. We spotted a new “Handoff” menu within Android’s “Cross-device services” settings, a section that contains interconnectivity features like call casting and Internet sharing. According to the menu, Handoff will include options for notification syncing, file sharing, and app continuity across your devices.

Based on its name and description, we assumed Android’s Handoff would work similarly to Apple’s feature, but we lacked direct evidence. That changed with the first quarterly release of Android 16, when Google began adding code for a new system-level feature called “Task Continuity.” Over the past few months, Google has quietly expanded on this code, affirming that it is indeed building its own take on Apple’s Handoff.

Before explaining how Android’s Handoff will work, it’s helpful to first understand Apple’s version. According to Apple, Handoff lets you “start work on one device, then switch to another nearby device and pick up where you left off.” For example, if you open androidauthority.com in Safari on your iPhone, a special Safari icon will appear in your MacBook’s dock. This icon shows the app’s logo alongside a tiny indicator in the top-right corner identifying the source device. Clicking it opens the same webpage on your Mac.

The feature works the other way, too; when handing off a task from a MacBook, a banner appears in the app switcher on iOS and iPadOS. Handoff isn’t limited to Apple’s own applications, either. It’s available to any third-party app that implements the necessary APIs. This deep, system-level integration is possible because Apple controls the software across its entire device lineup, reinforcing a key advantage of its closed ecosystem.

In contrast, a seamless Handoff equivalent between Windows and Android would require deep collaboration between Microsoft and Google. While Microsoft is attempting to build such a system, it’s doing so without Google’s direct involvement, leading to a fragmented and limited experience for both users and developers.

For users, Microsoft’s solution is a one-way street: it only supports resuming tasks from an Android phone on a Windows PC, not vice versa. This is because Microsoft lacks the OS-level access needed to show task resumption notices on Android; that functionality would have to be implemented by individual phone manufacturers. The feature also relies on the Phone Link app and its related services, which aren’t pre-installed on many Android devices, creating another barrier to entry.

The hurdles are just as significant for developers. To support this feature, they must integrate a specific Windows SDK into a native Windows version of their app — which many mobile apps don’t have. This is a substantial amount of work for a feature that, due to the inconsistencies on the Android side, won’t be available to all users, creating a poor incentive for adoption.

By merging Chrome OS and Android into a single PC OS, Google sidesteps most of these issues. Because Google will control the underlying operating system on both ends, it can build its version of Handoff directly into the core experience and offer a single, standardized API for all Android developers. This approach ensures broad, consistent compatibility from the start.

Of course, there will still be challenges. Google gives phone manufacturers significant freedom in customizing their UI, which could lead to fragmentation. However, since Google dictates the core Android framework, its Handoff solution is far more likely to see widespread adoption from Android device makers and app developers than a third-party approach like Microsoft’s.

How task continuity between Android devices might work with the new Handoff feature

So, how will Handoff on Android actually work? At a high level, the feature is designed to let you seamlessly transfer an app’s current state from one Android device to another. The device you’re currently using will show a suggestion on its taskbar representing the running app from the other device. When you click this suggestion, the system initiates the handoff, passing the remote app’s state and relaunching it locally.

On a technical level, Handoff is built on three key components:

• First is the system-level framework, the core of the feature. It’s a set of services that determines which app activities are eligible to be handed off and packages the data needed to recreate them on the new device.
• Next, the communication layer is responsible for discovering these tasks from nearby devices and managing the handoff requests between them.
• Finally, the user interface component enables the taskbar to receive information about these remote tasks and display them to the user as actionable suggestions.

The basic technical flow of this feature is as follows:

1. A user runs an app, such as Chrome, on their source Android device (like their phone). For this to work, the app must have opted its current activity into the Handoff feature (mHandoffEnabled).
2. The source device communicates the presence of this active task to a nearby target device (like a tablet or PC) using signals such as REMOTE_TASK_ADDED or REMOTE_TASK_UPDATED.
3. On the target device, the TaskContinuityManager service receives this information. It then notifies the TaskbarHandoffController, which is responsible for processing the remote task data, creating HandoffSuggestion objects, and fetching the necessary app icons and labels.
4. An icon representing the remote Chrome task then appears in the taskbar of the target device.
5. The user taps this icon, which triggers a handoff request via the TaskContinuityManager.requestHandoff method.
6. The target device requests the task’s state from the source device. In response, the remote activity’s state is packaged into an object and sent back to the target device.
7. Finally, the target device launches the same activity locally, restoring its state from the provided PersistableBundle.

The code I’ve examined only details the remote-to-local handoff flow, meaning the mechanism for a device to broadcast its own current activity to other devices isn’t present here. This doesn’t mean that Android won’t support PC-to-phone or tablet-to-phone task handoffs, but for now, we haven’t spotted any code that suggests tasks can be handed off to phones through the recent apps menu like on iOS. In this regard, Google’s implementation is conceptually similar to moving a task from an iPhone to a Mac, where a suggestion appears in the Mac’s Dock — much like how this feature places its suggestion on the Android taskbar.

We’ll continue digging into future Android releases for more details. As for a release date, we suspect the feature won’t be ready until Android 17, given that Android 16’s current quarterly release has already reached Platform Stability. This timeline would align nicely with Google’s recent announcement at the Snapdragon Summit that it plans to bring Android to PCs next year. As always, for the latest developments on Google’s Android on PC plans, there’s no better place than Android Authority — we were the ones who first broke the news, after all.

Want more?

Authority Insights is more than a newsletter — it’s the hub for all our best content. If you care about Android, you won’t want to miss any of our other exclusive reports.

Don’t have time to read them all? Subscribe to our Authority Insights Podcast to hear me and my co-host, C. Scott Brown, break down our top stories of the week.