Continuity over ad-hoc wifi?

[0004838]

Does Continuity require a wifi network, or can it work over ad-hoc wifi? To clarify: all I'm interested in is the audio call and sms features, for use with an iPhone 4S.

Also, though Apple asserts that Continuity voice calls work with the iPhone 4S, they haven't specified the requirements for the SMS. Anyone know?

Finally, AFAICT, the hardware requirements for call and SMS continuity on the Mac side seem to be any Yosemite-compatible Mac - is that right?

As a side-question: does Yosemite support setup of WPA2-encrypted ad-hoc wifi? My Mountain Lion and Mavericks machines still only offer 128-bit WEP, even though I was sure that'd been improved to WPA2 at some point in the past…

 

[simonsi]

I was surprised continuity calls didn't work while connected via the personal hotspot (on the iPhone that continuity is setup on).

SMS requires IOS8.1 on the iPhone which is supported on the 4S

Yes Continuity Calls and SMS require any Yosemite Mac and IOS8.1, no BT requirement as for doc Handoff.

No idea re the WPA...

 

[Alimar]

I fear that an iPhone serving as a Personal Hotspot, while providing wi-fi for a computer, would not be utilizing wi-fi... because it is using LTE to do so. One Infinite Loop?

 

[simonsi]

I fear that an iPhone serving as a Personal Hotspot, while providing wi-fi for a computer, would not be utilizing wi-fi... because it is using LTE to do so. One Infinite Loop?

Maybe, for those occasions I'll just use Handsfree...

 

[0004838]

I was surprised continuity calls didn't work while connected via the personal hotspot (on the iPhone that continuity is setup on).

Yes, that is surprising. Wouldn't help me either way, as my iPhone doesn't have a data connection most of the time.

SMS requires IOS8.1 on the iPhone which is supported on the 4S

Yes Continuity Calls and SMS require any Yosemite Mac and IOS8.1, no BT requirement as for doc Handoff.

Excellent. Well, that's one thing down…

No idea re the WPA...

Yeah, not many people use this feature. Maybe someone'll know.

So, two questions left:

1) Does Continuity function over ad-hoc wifi?

2) Does Yosemite offer WPA or better encryption for ad-hoc networks?

 

[simonsi]

1) Does Continuity function over ad-hoc wifi?

What do you mean by ad-hoc? Personal Hotspot - no, Cafe/guest WiFi - seems so in my experience.

Where it doesn't I use Handsfree (which I used for this before Yosemite).

 

[0004838]

What do you mean by ad-hoc? Personal Hotspot - no, Cafe/guest WiFi - seems so in my experience.

Ad-hoc is a computer-to-computer wifi network, so one without an intermediate gateway like a wireless router, and typically without access to the Internet.

 

[simonsi]

Calls and SMS definitely need iCloud so cant work without internet access, as I said they dont work over a Personal hotspot either.

Doc handoff is reported as needing the doc synced in the cloud too so again no internet access would preclude that (although I dont have Handoff supported).

 

[0004838]

Calls and SMS definitely need iCloud so cant work without internet access, as I said they dont work over a Personal hotspot either.

Doc handoff is reported as needing the doc synced in the cloud too so again no internet access would preclude that (although I dont have Handoff supported).

Testing by Anandtech seems to have cleared things up: the SMS Forwarding uses iMessage:

the feature works by sending iMessages silently to and from the iPhone, and SMS messages are then sent to the proper phone number.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8629/looking-at-os-x-yosemite-and-ios-81/5

So, given I don't have a data connection on the iPhone, SMS Forwarding is out for me.

As for "needing iCloud": that statement's too ambiguous. My iPhone and my Macs are all, strictly speaking, "logged in" to the same iCloud account, but do not maintain a persistent data connection. The persistent data connection on all the relevant machines would appear to be a requirement that Apple just aren't spelling out clearly enough, at least for me.

Anyway, I guess this is a dead issue for me. No data connection = no Continuity. One less thing to worry about…

 

[simonsi]

Testing by Anandtech seems to have cleared things up: the SMS Forwarding uses iMessage:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8629/looking-at-os-x-yosemite-and-ios-81/5

So, given I don't have a data connection on the iPhone, SMS Forwarding is out for me.

As for "needing iCloud": that statement's too ambiguous. My iPhone and my Macs are all, strictly speaking, "logged in" to the same iCloud account, but do not maintain a persistent data connection. The persistent data connection on all the relevant machines would appear to be a requirement that Apple just aren't spelling out clearly enough, at least for me.

Anyway, I guess this is a dead issue for me. No data connection = no Continuity. One less thing to worry about…

Yep it does need real-time data connections to the iCloud to work so it can move the data around (same as with iMessage).