If you are unfamiliar with Your Phone, it is a service that lets users mirror their Android smartphone on a Windows 10 PC. As interesting as the feature is, in preview it has been limited. Microsoft promised it would allow Your Phone to connect Android applications to Windows 10. At its event yesterday, the company fulfilled its promise. Shilpa Ranganathan, GM of mobile product experience for Microsoft, highlighted the company’s ambitions: “We want you to move from your Surface, to your phone, and back to your Surface whenever you choose. That’s critical.” Mirroring Android applications will give Windows 10 users the ability to both see and interact with the apps on their PC. Microsoft demonstrated the feature, showing how Snapchat can be mirrored. Users can interact with Snapchat on their Windows 10 PC.
Availability
In part, Your Phone helps Microsoft bridge the app gap that has plagued Windows 10. While Your Phone is available with the now available October 2018 Update, it seems Android app mirroring will come later. That means Your Phone is still limited to features like sharing images and mirroring Microsoft apps. We hope Android app mirroring will come soon, but we suspect it may be held back until the 2019 first half Windows 10 release. Your Phone is a rare Android exclusive from Microsoft. Microsoft explains the reason the service is not coming to iOS is because of the closed ecosystem Apple enforces. Indeed, the company says if the app is ever made available on the platform it would be in a limited capacity.
