“Your Phone” is Microsoft’s Solution to Connecting your Android Phone to Windows 10

Smartphones have overshadowed desktops to become the primary point of interaction for a lot of people. There’s a lot happening on your phone at any given point, and it can be hard to keep track of all of it if you are using a computing machine other than your smartphone. Many have tried to solve this connectivity and sync issue through a variety of means, but there’s no clean way to get this job done.

Microsoft is trying its hand at solving this problem through its new app called “Your Phone.” This app for Windows 10 was announced at the annual Build conference and aims to be “a new way to connect your phone to your PC”.

Information on what Your Phone does and how it does it is scarce at the moment. Microsoft promises that Windows 10 desktops will now have instant access to text messages, photos, and notifications that exist on your phone, allowing users to interact with and utilize these elements without actually having to pick up their phone. Others have tried to tackle this sore point through different approaches, so it will be interesting to see how Microsoft goes about implementing this to work consistently across the multitude of Android and Windows 10 devices.

Initial feature set for Your Phone does sound fairly limited. SMS access on the desktop may not be very useful for regions where IM applications such as WhatsApp and Telegram have taken over. Simply displaying notifications for such IM apps without allowing further interaction would still force you to use your phone (or their respective desktop solutions). Photos from your phone can be brought over to a Windows 10 device through a variety of ways, so Microsoft’s success would hinge on providing a seamless and hassle-free experience. An official Microsoft application would still enjoy the benefit of a tighter integration with the Windows ecosystem, so there definitely is a lot of potential here.

Microsoft is rolling out the Your Phone app experience within the Windows Insiders Program. There’s no word of a separate rollout for the public, but we do expect to see this app in the next major update to Windows 10 that will be available later this year.

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Source: Microsoft

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