One of the things that always made me very jealous when looking upon staunch Apple users was the fact that their claim to having a much better phone-computer ecosystem was one that I couldn’t refute. The seamlessness between those platforms was something Android simply couldn’t imitate.
Well, until Link to Windows/Phone Link came along. This provided a way for your smartphone and computer to interact and ever since I’ve discovered it, I never looked back. However, with a newly introduced feature akin to AirDrop, the Android-Windows ecosystem is about to be at its best yet.
Microsoft Introduces A Feature In Windows 10 And 11 That Gives AirDrop-Like Functionality To Androids
If you’ve always been jealous of how easily an Apple user can share a file from their iPhone to their Mac or vice versa, I’ve been there too. I wouldn’t buy a phone solely for AirDrop, but it is one of those features that would work very well in keeping me glued to that side of the fence.
Sure, Android users can use Quick Share between their PC and their smartphone as a workaround, and for the most part, that works well, but it could be faster and more convenient.
Thanks to Windows Central, we now know that Microsoft has a support page that’s gone live detailing how you can now “seamlessly transfer content between your devices”. This feature works between two devices connected over Link to Windows and lets you simply select Link to Windows/Phone Link to share a file to the other device. There’s no need to accept the file from the other device since it is already trusted so it is as quick as can be.
Requirements For This New Feature
If you want to get your hands on this feature right now, you’ll need to make sure that the devices that you’re using satisfy some basic criteria. Worry not, most of you will qualify for this.
- A computer running Windows 11 or Windows 10 running at least the May 2019 update
- An Android smartphone running at least Android 9.0
- A computer with Phone Link v1.24032.156.0 or higher
- An Android smartphone with Link to Windows v1.24032.518.0 or higher
I’ve Tested The Feature Out And It Genuinely Works As Great As It Sounds; It’s Better Than Quick Share
I’m a lucky boy, as it seems that my computer and smartphone both satisfy all the necessary criteria to use this feature, and to save you all the effort, I’ve tried it out. My conclusion? I love it. The feature works exactly as intended.
To send a file from my PC to my linked smartphone, I simply right-clicked the file, clicked on Share, and then chose “Phone Link“. I’m not joking when I say that was it. The next thing was a notification on my phone within seconds, telling me the file had arrived.
The other way is just as easy. I selected a file on my phone, chose Share, and then tapped “Link to Windows“. There was one extra step to tap an icon representing my linked PC, but that was it. Quick as that! Unlike Quick Share, I don’t even need to have Bluetooth switched on for this to work. I’ll certainly be using this a whole lot going forward.
