Android tablet users will soon be able to stream calls from their phones

A benefit of being part of Apple’s ecosystem is the Handoff feature, where you can basically switch between devices like an iPhone and iPad easily and pick up where you left off. It also works with FaceTime calls, so if your phone isn’t nearby, you can answer it on your tablet, and then transfer it to your iPhone later if you prefer.

It’s not a particularly new feature, but it looks like Google is finally ready to add it to Android. This will be done through Google’s new Telecom Jetpack library that the company announced at I/O back in May, which is an API that developers can use so that they can reroute audio to compatible devices, like a smartphone to a tablet.

One advantage of this is that because it’s an API, it will allow developers to incorporate it into their apps, giving users more flexibility unlike Apple’s implementation which seems to be restricted to their own apps. Also, another thing to note is that the feature is more like a stream, meaning that you’re not really transferring one call from one device to another.

The main call itself will still be handled by the source device, as in the device you answered it on, but you’ll still be able to control aspects of it like hanging up, adjusting volume, and so on, but in the event the source device runs out of battery or crashes, it will affect the call on the other device as well.

It is unclear at this point which apps will be taking advantage of this new API, so we’ll just have to wait and see, but we imagine that Google will probably be implementing it into its own native apps and services.

Source: XDA Developers