Methods and apparatus enabling seamless vertical handover between radio networks. In one embodiment, a mobile device in communication with multiple networks, scans the networks for suitable candidate networks for handover. If the mobile device experiences signal loss below a first threshold, the mobile device primes itself for a handover. Once the signal loss drops below a second threshold, the mobile device executes the handover. The priming of the device enables very low level hardware to detect and initiate the handover (rather than higher layer software). Consequently, software applications data loss is greatly improved (i.e., reduced) during a vertical handover.