When my iPhone rings so does my iPad. Just started doing this since I did the ios8 update

Thank you Demo and Phil0124. Can someone give me a useful practical application for this feature? And (harder) why it should be ON by default? "Change for the sake of change" isn't the answer I'm looking for, but I am curious why it would be useful.

I have found Its convenient when you are at home and your phone is plugged in to charge in the other room but you have your iPad with you because you are watching a movie or something, and a call comes in, you can answer directly on the iPad instead of having to go to the other room to get the iPhone.

In any case, it only happens when both devices are on the same Wifi network. Then the call can get mirrored to the other device. So you can pick up with whichever device is closest to you.

As to why its on by default? That I cannot say.

Just like back in the days of whole house land line phones.

This happened to me today while I was at home. I think this is a push to put each individual device onto separate Apple IDs. I have all my iOS devices on one ID and have had for each device I have owned (now at 5 devices). I can see how having all your devices on one ID was nice at one time. You could buy an app once and use it on every device attached to that ID. Now however that ApplePay is coming and will soon be ubiquitous (Apple hopes anyway) I can see how you'd want to keep your kid's/wife's/whomever's phones' IDs separate from your phone's Apple ID since ApplePay is linked to the Apple ID.

If you own both an iPad, Mac and iPhone and they are your personal devices, I can really see the benefit of having a feature like this handy. However it's not really ideal to have your FAMILY iPad ringing every time your PERSONAL phone rings. Some calls you probably don't want to go to several devices particularly if those devices are not used exclusively by you. Since our iPad is definitely a FAMILY iPad I don't want every person that call my PERSONAL phone to be available to be answered on the iPad as well.

This is also why Apple has implemented family sharing. In addition to each device on an Apple ID sharing apps, you can now also share apps among Apple IDs. This makes it more of an incentive to have each iOS device on its own Apple ID. Privacy is preserved, yet the ability to share is also preserved.

So in short, turn off the Cellular Calling feature in the FaceTime settings if you have multiple family members sharing an Apple ID. A better solution, while initially more time consuming, is to set up each device in your family with its own Apple ID. You can then set up family sharing and still have the ability to share and pay only once for those apps you want to share. This is much more secure especially if you upgrade your devices to newer TouchID devices equipped with Apple Pay. Currently that's limited to only the newest devices however, eventually the number of devices with the capability to use ApplePay and other related TouchID features will far out number those that can't.

I have two iPads and a old 3Gs that are used exclusively for family. I will be setting those 3 up on one Apple ID. Since they are not attached to anyone person in our family in particular, they can all share the same ID. My wife's phone and my phone will be getting their own Apple ID. As we upgrade to newer devices in the near future (currently using an iPhone 4 and 5) this will make it easier to keep things separate on each device.

Will this distinguish between phone calls and Facetime? I do want my iPad to connect with a Facetime call (it did it before I upgraded to iOS8), but I don't want regular phone calls to do it. Do the settings distinguish between the two?

Julsiebean wrote:

Will this distinguish between phone calls and Facetime? I do want my iPad to connect with a Facetime call (it did it before I upgraded to iOS8), but I don't want regular phone calls to do it. Do the settings distinguish between the two?

Yes. The setting only applies to calls coming in to an iPhone number that get routed to iPad. It will not affect calls coming in to Facetime specifically on the iPad.

I was able to answer my iPad with an android calling in it works. Pretty cool

Will turning off this continuity feature on the iPad affect incoming texts as well as phone calls. If i can afford to be picky, I like to have texts come in to both devices, but not phone calls as well. Thanks for all the good information on here.

No. iPhone Cellular Calls only affects Calls.

For texts you can manage what devices get texts forwarded to them from within the Messages settings on the iPhone. Settings->Messages->Text Message Forwarding

Yeah, I hope they do make it so that when the ringer is off on the iPhone, it won't ring on the iPad. I like this Continuity/Handoff thing, but don't appreciate being woke up from a much needed nap by a ringing iPad, especially when the ringer was off on the iPhone, and the iPad was set to Do Not Disturb. Do Not Disturb should always override everything!

I realize the feature can be disabled, but to have to disable a feature I like, because the iPad isn't honoriing the iPhone's shut off ringer, or it's own Do Not Disturb settings doesn't sound like they thought this through. It's a half-baked feature. 😀

I guess I'll turn it back on when it's fully cooked.

Thanks to Demo - I came with the same question, and your answer was the right one.

The iPad makes a great speaker phone, if you leave the feature on.

Thank you, ToastyFlake -- it's not the way I usually use my iPad, but it's good to know. -

Best regards,

Fannie

ANother thing to point out is if u have FaceTime already turned off on your devices (iphone & ipad) you will have to turn facetime on in order to turn off the cellular setting....then you can turn off FaceTime time again. The instructions given assume FaceTime is on and that you will see this setting, but you won't see this if you have FaceTime off. Turn it on , turn off the cellular setting, then turn FaceTime off again.

I don't want to stop continuity feature, I only want to stop my iPad from ringing. Can I turn the ringtone off?