This was first announced last month at Samsung’s 2020 Unpacked event. Specifically, Galaxy phone users can stream Android apps to their Windows 10 PC. Samsung has been perhaps the biggest ally to Microsoft as the company has sought connection with Android. Microsoft is now rolling out an update for the app streaming feature that brings it out of preview. Samsung Galaxy owners can now link phones to Windows 10. This is done through the Your Phone application, allowing apps to open in a separate window. Users will benefit from being able to open multiple app windows at once. This ability to multi-task is something smartphone users cannot do and is arguably the main feature that makes Your Phone interesting. Phone users can now multi-task across applications on PC.
Current Limitations
While this is clearly a promising feature, there are a couple of caveats. Firstly, it seems the feature is exclusive to Samsung devices. That probably won’t always be the case, but for now you’ll need to have a Samsung Galaxy smartphone. 34 of the company’s handsets are supported, including the Galaxy S20, Galaxy Note 20, Galaxy Z Flip, and Galaxy Fold 2. Whether it reaches other manufacturers will depend on collaboration. This feature requires a special driver from Microsoft, which Samsung supports. Other OEMs would need to work with Microsoft and accept this driver to bring app streaming to their devices. While the multiple app streaming capability is in the pipeline, it won’t arrive until later this year. For the time being, users are limited to streaming just a single app to their PC.
