Fixing Yosemite/iOS8 Handoff

I am usually quick to admit “with Apple products, it just works…”. That was not the case when it came to the new “Continuity” feature in Yosemite/iOS8. As in the past, I expected things to just work, and when it did not, I put a whole bunch of Apple devices in front of me and ran a number of tests. I used a late 2013 model of a MacBook Pro with Retina Display using Yosemite, an iPhone 6 using iOS 8, an iPhone 5 using iOS 8.1b2, and an iPad Mini running iOS 8.

The interesting thing was that the Continuity feature seemed to work without a problem between the iPhone 5 and the iPad Mini, but the two newer devices just would not want to play.

After some googling, I found some indication that logging out of iCloud on the MacBook, rebooting and then logging in again should give the Continuity feature the necessary kick to start working. This did not work on my iPhone 6, but now the MacBook Pro “knew” about what was going on on the iPhone 5 and the iPad. Previous experience with networking problems on iOS devices suggested to just “Reset Network Settings” on the device (select “Settings>General>Reset>Reset Network Settings”).

After the device reset, I started up the browser on the iPhone 6, and the Handoff icon showed up immediately on my MacBook Pro. Yay!