New phone, who this? Microsoft may not have a smartphone platform to lean on anymore, but when it comes to phone features, the company sure is active.
The new Your Phone app is central to turning the Windows desktop into a repository of smartphone activities. It allows you to send and receive text messages and interact with photos from your gallery, right from the OS.
But according to this reliable report, the next feature update for the operating system will amp up these abilities and comes with system for mirroring calls.
In other words, you will soon be able to transfer phone calls to your Windows 10 PC speakers.
As thing stand, a new system called Windows.CallingShellApp transfers calls that originate on a smartphone to speakers on a Windows 10 powered device.
It is not yet available on the preview build released to Windows Insiders, but is said to be coming soon.
Here is a screenshot:
Digging deeper, it has been revealed that not only is this new feature relegated to the desktop, but there are other strings in the subsystem too that relate to the mythic folding device that is being worked on behind Redmond walls.
There are strings like “Fold the device over to return call”, “Transferred”, “Could not transfer”, “Show in-call options”, “Connect to WiFi to do things that require an Internet connection”, “You are almost out of WLAN range” and more.
The path to bring Windows 10 closer to smartphones has been a long and confusing one.
But at least, Microsoft seems to be working with clarity here.
Insiders will soon be able to test these grander ambitions for phone connectivity in the operating system, with the feature aimed at version 19H1, the next major update for the operating system, which is aimed at a spring 2019 release for consumers.
