Apple's improvement is in reducing the friction. When the devices are in proximity you literally swipe the icon and are instantly in exactly the same state you left off — on a different device. Web apps don't do it like this, and I think that's an important aspect of the attraction here.
>When the devices are in proximity you literally swipe the icon and are instantly in exactly the same state you left off — on a different device. Web apps don't do it like this, and I think that's an important aspect of the attraction here.
Web applications DO this. Take a look at google docs. Thanks to technologies such as operational transformation, this is possible.
Chrome doesn't even work like that. Web apps can do it, but it's a huge pain in the ass. It looks like apple's going to make the transition a lot easier.
I am not familiar with any web apps (Google docs included) that put an icon on the lock screen of a device within proximity that you can swipe to be instantly at your editing position ready to continue. This is what I refer to when I say "reducing friction".
It's not the problem with web apps, it's a problem with Apple who doesn't provide such an API. Chrome and Safari has notification API and it can be implemented in a way to support this.
It sounds like a neat trick, but I'm having a really hard time thinking of when I'd actually want or need to do this. If I'm already near my desktop or laptop, I'm unlikely to start composing an email on my phone and suddenly decide I want to continue it on another device. So I'm not sure what friction they are reducing.
Most common I can think of is when I want to read a web page on something bigger than my iPhone. Currently I have to email myself a link, and I lose my scroll position.
Just noting that if you use Safari you can use iCloud tabs to load pages from other devices. I believe Chrome is similar in this regard. Handoff just reduces the friction in even this process, so you don't even need to specify which page to pick up reading on.
iCloud tab syncing has a pretty bad lag. Maybe a minute to update on my Mac. Fine most of the time, but annoying if you want to do a Handoff-style scenario. It also doesn't show your current iPhone "tab" highlighted in any way, which is odd.
So, I'm glad Apple saw it as something to improve.
