Google’s new Android add-on resembles Apple’s Handoff. The primary function remains similar across both ecosystems: allowing users to start a task on their Android phone and continue it right where they left off on a compatible tablet.
Continue, Google’s iteration of Handoff, has been designed to be bidirectional, but Google has clarified that, as of now, it only supports tasks moving from a smartphone to a tablet. Android tablet users will see the “Continue” icon in the dock, which suggests the most recently used app from their phone, assuming it is installed on their device.
This feature would allow Android users to directly open documents they were working on or jump straight into the email they had just opened. In some circumstances, it can also open the tablet’s browser to the relevant page to continue a task on the web instead.
Google has added that the feature will be available for testing in Android 17’s EC1 build, its first release candidate version. However, it has not yet detailed when that will arrive, and it also did not say when tablet-to-phone handoff support will be introduced. With the recent announcement of a lineup of new laptops and this feature, Google seems to be pushing toward broader Android interoperability that could match Apple’s
Google explains the feature by adding, “Continue enables users to start an Android app on one Android device and then transition to another device in their Android ecosystem, continuing the user journey they started.” All users would have to do is connect to the same account on two different devices. You can navigate from an Android 17 device to any other device without losing your progress.
