Google Adds Continue On Feature to Android 17 for Phone-to-Tablet Task Switching

Google is adding a feature to Android 17 that lets users start a task on a smartphone and continue it on a compatible tablet. The feature, called Continue On, will initially support movement of tasks only from phone to tablet. Android tablet users will see an icon in the dock that suggests the most recently used app from their phone, assuming the app is also installed on the tablet.

It will allow users to open documents they were working on or jump directly into an email that was open on the phone. In some cases, the tablet's browser will open to the page needed to continue a web-based task. Google stated that Continue On is designed to become bidirectional in the future, but tablet-to-phone handoffs are not supported at launch.

The feature will be available to test in Android 17's RC1 build, the first release candidate version. Google has not announced when that build will arrive or when full bidirectional support will be added. The announcement comes alongside last week's news of Android-powered Googlebook laptops.