Apple's Continuity was one of the big features of iOS 8 . By letting you make and receive calls and texts (coming soon) on your iPad (and eventually Mac when OS X Yosemite is released), it helped set the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus apart from its Android competitors, making them unique among the current crop of flagship handsets. However, Motorola's brand new Moto X will soon be taking Apple on at its own game with its new Motorola Connect app.
By using the Motorola Connect Chrome extension, Motorola Connect lets you send and receive texts from your PC, as well as reply to phone calls with texts and see incoming and missed called notifications directly from your browser. It's the first time we've seen this kind of feature on an Android phone, and while it's a shame you can't use your PC or a tablet to answer calls, as you can with Continuity, it's still great to see this kind of technology finally being implemented on a non-iOS device.
You'll need to be on the same Wi-Fi network and logged into Chrome on your PC with the same Google Account that's linked to your phone for it to work, but once the extension has paired with your phone, it's very simple and easy to use.
When you open the extension, a pop-out window will appear showing you a list of your recent calls and texts, as well as your phone's battery life and how strong the connection is between your phone and PC.
When you receive a call, your PC will ring, show a pop-up notification of who's calling and a small vibrating green phone will appear in the extensions bar in the top corner of your browser. You can either ignore or answer the call via text using the notification card. Choosing to answer via text won't automatically end the call for the other person sadly, but you'll then be presented with a new window to type out your reply.
If you miss a call on either the phone or PC, the green phone will return to the Motorola Connect logo in Chrome's extension bar and will show the number of notifications you received while you were away from your computer. Opening the extension box will then show you when that person called and give you the option to send them a text message.
It's a brilliant feature and it's great to finally see Chrome and Android working together in such a practical way. While Motorola Connect may not be quite as sophisticated as Apple's Continuity, it's a very welcome step in the right direction for Android and one that we hope more phone manufacturers will take advantage of in the future.
We'll be bringing you our full review of the new Moto X in the next few days, so stay tuned for our final verdict on Motorola's latest flagship handset.
