Microsoft gets Android apps to Windows 10 with this new feature

Software giant Microsoft has started testing updates to its ‘Your Phone’ app for Windows 10. With the latest update, Android users will be able to mirror a smartphone screen directly to a PC. We should add that the ‘phone screen’ mirroring feature will be made available to Windows Insider starting this week. To make the feature work well, you need to have the latest test builds of Windows 10 along with the Your Phone app.

To recall, Microsoft had earlier demonstrated how the phone screen mirroring feature works in Your Phone app at its Surface event in October last year. The app makes the smartphone screen appear directly on to Windows 10 and it shows an entire list of Android apps that you have. You can access these apps by tapping on them and make them appear in the remote session of your device that will be mirrored to your PC that runs on Windows 10.

Microsoft is also making Bluetooth with Low Energy Peripheral mode a requirement for PCs. This has been done because it is the only way in which Your Phone app communicates and mirrors Android smartphones to Windows 10 PCs. However, this also means that too many PCs will not be able to participate in testing the feature at least initially. Microsoft Surface Go is the first ever Surface machine to support the beta test.

The software giant has also limited the number of smartphones that will have support for the mirroring feature during the test. As of now, it is only available on Samsung Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+, Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+. However, the company has said that it will be expanding the list of smartphones and PC devices that support this feature with time.

We should add here that screen mirroring is a good way to use your mobile apps on PC. It is a clever way in which Microsoft and Android come together. Microsoft has started testing the feature, however, it does have support for older versions of Windows 10 too. So, the new feature will make its way to the ‘Your Phone’ app as a separate update once the testing is finished.