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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

HandOff is the kind of thing I'm surprised took so long. Honestly, I was expecting MS to get something like it first. After all, your Windows Phone already runs Windows, right?

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I'm especially shocked this has taken so long because the technology is ancient:

Windows has had a "Use this computer as a Bluetooth Headset" option buried in the Bluetooth preferences for a long time now.

The Address Book in Mac OS 10.0 and 10.1 would also let you send and receive SMSes with compatible phones (no joke):

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/wireless/2002/11/27/sms.html

And Linux has had a few projects (like nohands) which do the same thing.

Sending SMSs from Address Book was a phenomenal feature. A shame that they yanked it years ago. Good to see its return.

I remember that that I could do far more with my Sony Ericsson W800 (and Salling Clicker) than I could with my first iPhone. Dialing numbers from the address book, sending and receiving SMSs while the phone was in my bag/pocket, turning the screen saver on and pausing music if I left the area - and reverting on return. Apart from the UI polish, this was the least impressive part of keynote (at least for me) as those were things I had to give up on.

> Apart from the UI polish

It sounds like you underestimate how hard it is to have "UI polish" implemented just right so that it feels seamless and natural instead of a hack (because honestly we do love to hack but ultimately prefer our prototypes to be implemented first-party, e.g I've been using JACK to stream audio in sync on various devices for years but AirPlay is so much more simple and natural)

I think you misread my comment. Apart from the UI polish, I wasn't impressed --> I was impressed with the UI polish but less so the rest.

I'm aware that implementing this well is a difficult problem and I have utmost respect for those who figure out how to make it feel seamless.

Salling Clicker was the biggest thing I missed in the switch from so-called "dumb phones" to smartphones.

>Windows has had a "Use this computer as a Bluetooth Headset" option buried in the Bluetooth preferences for a long time now.

Depends which Bluetooth stack you have installed on Windows.

True, like every other Bluetooth feature on Windows.

The stack that I know works is the Broadcom / WIDCOMM one.

The fact a user might have to know which Bluetooth stack they have installed is quite telling as to why it never caught on.

It's like Pushbullet built into both OSes with the polish that entails. Absolutely genius. I hope Google builds Pushbullet or something very similar into Chrome and Android, that integration is awesome.

AFAIK, PushBullet doesn't allow you to answer phone calls.

The closest analogue it comes to my mind is an early demo of Ubuntu for Android in which they showed the ability to reply to SMS messages from within the Unity desktop (although I'm certain I saw a phone call demo too, just can't find a link to the video). However, in that case, both the Ubuntu desktop and Android were running on the same device, so it was easier (still a notable feat for the time).

This kind of integration between different devices is far more impressive, though.

Nope it doesn't - that's an example of where this is much smoother. FWIW MightyText already does SMS (via an app, not proximity) on Android/Chrome - although it's not Apple smooth in terms of replying either.

I think the right way to go would be syncing the actions as well as data of Android's rich notifications - things like reply to email/archive from chrome notifications, reply to SMS, hangouts.. It'd be Google's universal apps between Android and Chrome - syncing actions. It'd need a lot of developer support but it'd be fantastic if they pulled it off as well as Apple and supported third parties in a serious way.

There's something kinda similar for KDE, KDE Connect, it sends notifications to your PC from your phone, but you can not reply.

http://community.kde.org/KDEConnect

And they're working on more communication the other direction. I use it — it's nice to have.

They kind of already have something like it with the roaming storage on 8.1, there's just not enough crazy interested developers on the platform trying to push the limits of the sdk, and MS hasn't really advertised all the neat stuff well.

> After all, your Windows Phone already runs Windows, right?

A very philosophical question indeed.

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