Microsoft picks up Your Phone – unless you're an Apple fan – in a fresh Windows 10 build

While its employees adjusted to life complaining about working from home rather than working in open-plan offices, Microsoft emitted a fresh build of Windows 10 for Fast Ring Insiders and tweaked Your Phone for Samsung owners. Build 19582.1001 brought forth the usual limited list of updates, although the thoughtful increasing …

[andy 103]

The Apple ecosystem had this covered years ago

This made me laugh

iPhone fans? Not so much.

Copy and paste of text and images between phone and PC is now possible...

There's a reason iPhone users don't care about stuff like this. Because in Apple World this sort of (very basic) task has been possible for ages with the likes of AirDrop.

If you use an iPhone and a Mac there's already a seamless equivalent of anything Your Phone does. Syncing screenshots, accessing photos, contacts, etc with iCloud all just works. Has done for years.

If you use an iPhone with Windows, well, more fool you. Most things are still possible but not always quite as seamless.

[Pascal Monett]

Ah yes, the smug superiority of the Apple fan. Entirely justified, I must admit. Apple had the user interface down pat, back in the day.

Before it forgot how to make laptop keyboards, that is.

That said, there's one thing I can do with my Samsung that you cannot on your iPhone : I can swap out my battery on my own, in seconds, without any tools whatsoever.

I rather prefer that over copy/pasting from my phone to my computer - especially since I never do that nor have had the need to.

Replacing the battery, on the other hand, I have a need for.

[Sgt_Oddball]

Unless....

You need to copy/paste a password as I found out today. Apple knows better than to let us have a password manager and be able to paste a password (from anything).

Why is this a good thing for the users? Answers on a postcard please.

Also with regards to getting smug of the existing features to link iPhone to iMacs... Yeah try doing that with an android phone. Oh you can't without a 3rd party app? Well then, take your superiority to the corner and think about what you said.

[andy 103]

Re: Unless....

Yeah try doing that with an android phone. Oh you can't without a 3rd party app? Well then, take your superiority to the corner and think about what you said.

That's my point. Using an iPhone and Mac is an ecosystem that just works.

Using an Android phone with a Mac, or to some extent an iPhone on Windows is nowhere near as elegant or seamless when it comes to doing such tasks as those I mentioned.

Then as a defence you always get someone coming out with unrelated crap like their phone has a 3.5mm jack, or they can replace a battery. That has literally nothing to do with what this article is about.

[O RLY]

Re: Unless....

"Apple knows better than to let us have a password manager and be able to paste a password"

What are you talking about? You mean this capability allowing users to use either Apple's or a 3rd-party password manager introduced in 2018?

[doublelayer]

Re: Unless....

"Yeah try doing that with an android phone. Oh you can't without a 3rd party app?"

If we're going to get pedantic about these arguments, exactly the same logic applies to Windows. It can work with Android phones. Running the latest software update. Manufactured by Samsung only. Only from two device classes. So for the vast majority of Android users, the feature isn't available without a third-party app. So maybe we can ditch the smugness all around. Apple's only works with all-Apple environments, Windows's only works with a couple Samsungs. Neither works well with anything outside their small device set. However, if you're really wanting to push this particular issue, the Apple people have a slightly better claim to pride about their system than does MS--theirs works with all iPhones going back quite a while, whereas the Windows-Android alternative isn't available except for people who spent a grand or so on their phones in the last six months.

I feel obliged to point out that, if this is a big issue for you, it isn't that hard to get a third-party app. Just find one that works with your phone and computer, which probably exists, and it will probably be fine. KDe has done quite a bit of work on connecting to Android devices, and I've heard it works well. It's not a big thing for me, though, so I haven't tried it.

[HelpfulJohn]

Re: Unless....

Uhhhn ... something I've been doing since Win 3.1 and Apple Original OS Something: mung the password/userid a little in case it gets intercepted then email it to yourself. Safe, secure, fast, totally platform-agnostic, totally *OS*-agnostic, utterly portable and compliant with the concept of saving it for later in case you ever forget it.

Who *cares* whether your kit talks to each other? Email just works.

It has, incidentally, worked for more than passwords, too.

[chololennon]

Re: Unless....

"Also with regards to getting smug of the existing features to link iPhone to iMacs... Yeah try doing that with an android phone. Oh you can't without a 3rd party app? "

Well, for the pair Linux/Android the perfect "glue" is KDE Connect (A "native" application for KDE distros if you're worry about 3er party apps). No way to go back to Windows or use those expensive/closed Macs.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: The Apple ecosystem had this covered years ago

I use notes to self in Signal to copy sensitive information between phone and computer. It works on my Mac and on my Samsung and I generally use Dropbox for moving files. None of Apple's silent deleting of files for me, thank you very much.

[Anonymous Coward]

Converted

As long time Windows user (and MS-DOS before that) I used to hate Apple PCs. On one job, I was provided with a Mac desktop - and it was like a dyslexic goldfish (totally carp). However, when the iPhone got to the 3GS I tried one as it could actually make life a bit easier for me as, when travelling, one gadget could, potentially, replace four (my Nokia phone, my Tungsten PDA, my TomTom GPS - essential when getting a hire car at an overseas airport - and an iPod). It actually worked well and, impressed by the way staff in the local Apple Store never pushed to sell me anything (they actually pointed out cheaper options) I tried out an iMac - with Windows 7 dual booting as I still had unhappy memories from my earlier Mac. However, the iMac was a revelation in how Apple had progressed and that is still my main desktop PC 8 years on; Windows (10) is no longer dual booted as it runs fine as a VM (through Parallels) on the occasions I need it for software that still insists on Windows.

Add in an iPad and a newer iPhone and all work together, almost seamlessly. Photos taken on the phone appear on teh iPad to show others and the iMac for editing and archiving; documents prepared on the iMac are available on the phone or iPad; notes, contacts and calendar entries - it doesn't matter on which I enter or update them, they appear on all.

I eventually bought an iMac for my wife, which brought the majority of appeals like "Darling, how do I...?" to an end. If she has a problem nowadays it's almost always regarding Excel (yes, we use MS Office). Apple kit is more expensive to buy, and I sometimes need to accept Apple's insistence on doing something their way, but I've found it does what I need it to do.

[itzumee]

Re: Converted

My wife has used Windows for work and home for a long time now and found MacOS frustrating - she's not a techie or a Windows power user in any way, but frequently found herself cursing at the MacBook and eventually gave up on it, demanding we got a laptop instead.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: Converted

Apple kit is more expensive to buy

I guess compared to Lawyers fees and Divorce, Apple kit is a bargain

[HelpfulJohn]

Re: Converted

" ... on the occasions I need it for software that still insists on Windows."

WINE, CrossOver from Https://www..codeweavers.com or a few others can run Windosed softwares without running a VM or a full Win-OS.

I use CrossOver for the wife's DoSsy games on her MacBook. They run fine though the keys are differently described. They have a Windosed software compatibilty list. They also do a Linux version.

I don't own shares, nor do I work for them, I'm just trying to be helpful.

[martinusher]

It all fails because of the assumption about users and machines

I know Microsoft would like to logically connect my phone to my PC but I don't bother with it. Quite apart from their modern insistnce that files and directories are for techies -- they ignore my file organization because they're way of doing things based on their model of a typical user is obviously superior -- they also fail to understand that there isn't a "PC", there's likely to be several systems that do various jobs (....and I've only got the one phone merely because the phone providers haven't caught up with the idea that a phone is a device, not a user account).

Technology apart I also fighre that MSFT is just like every other company out there, they only add features to enhance their ability to snoop on my life and, in the process, rent my eyeballs to whoever thinks they can sell me stuff. I have better use for screen real estate.

[PhilipN]

Scottish Gaelic?

Just HAD to look this up. An alphabet of 18 letters.

Makes it the smallest keyboard in the World?*

* Unless you remember the Cykey thingy. 5 keys.

[Kevin McMurtrie]

All spamsung Android 10

All Samsung phones with Android 10 seem to have it. Like the other shovelware, it spews advertisements for itself and is difficult to disable.

I don't have Windows or MacOS. If I want to share something I can put it in an IMAP folder, SFTP it, rsync it, or use MTP over USB-C.

[Michael Wojcik]

Essential?

the Your Phone companion app, which has become an essential tool for Windows 10 and Android users

Has it, now? I have both Windows 10 (on a work machine) and Android, and I've never used Your Phone, nor do I ever intend to.

Based on the article and comments, it sounds like it's used by a rather small fraction of Win10+Android users. For how many of those is it actually "essential"?

Some of us - I know this is shocking - managed to get along just fine without smartphones at all, once upon a time, much less smartphones with "apps" for our desktop or laptop computers.

[Anonymous Coward]

RDP on a retina display in a VM sucks

doesn't work in any host environment consistently.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: RDP on a retina display in a VM sucks

Windows HDPI just plain sucks in general, can’t seem to make its mind up when it is going to work, even in the same popup menus sometimes.