Apple's rivals took 7 years to create their own version of one of the company's simplest, best features - but it still has a ways to go

Antonio Villas-BoasSep 8, 2019, 20:18 IST

Antonio Villas-Boas/Business Insider

One of the greatest features in the Apple iPhone and Mac ecosystem is the ability to send and receive text messages from your Mac computer.
I forgot how great that feature was when I first departed the Apple ecosystem.
Microsoft has a Windows 10 app called "Your Phone" that lets Android users send and receive text messages. It came out last year, but it wasn't great at the time. It's improved significantly now.
You just need to install the Your Phone app on your Android phone and your Windows 10 computer, link your Android phone to your Microsoft account, and off you go, texting your friends and family from your computer.
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Microsoft and Samsung announced that they're working together to bring text messaging to Windows 10 computers for Samsung Galaxy Note 10 users.

That's fantastic. The new Galaxy Note 10 has Microsoft's "Your Phone" feature built into the phone, ready to connect with your Microsoft account. Once you set it up, you can start sending and replying text messages from the Your Phone computer app on your Windows 10 machine.

It's something that Apple users have been used to for years now, and it's understandably a factor in why Apple fans don't want to leave the Apple ecosystem.

But the Your Phone app isn't just compatible with the Galaxy Note 10: Microsoft released the app last year, and it's compatible with pretty much every Android phone out there. Just download the Your Phone app on your Android phone and Windows 10 computer and set it up.

Your Phone wasn't reliable when I first tried it last year, and I stopped using it pretty quickly as a result. But it's improved, and I now feel comfortable in using it on a daily basis.

Still, it's missing a few features, like text message management. You can't delete texts in the desktop Your Phone app, it's still a little buggy here and there, and you can't make calls from your Windows 10 computer yet.

Check out Microsoft's Your Phone app, which I've been using with a Google Pixel 3 XL:

See Apple's rivals took 7 years to create their own version of one of the company's simplest, best features - but it still has a ways to go >>

Your Phone is fairly easy to set up on Android phones and Windows 10. It's not as seamless as it is with iPhones and Mac computers, but I'm not complaining too much.

Just like Apple's Messages ecosystem with an iPhone and a Mac computer, I can send and receive text messages with an Android phone and Windows 10, including messages with photos and GIFs.

But some messages with certain content, like contact details and videos, don't work with Your Phone yet. It tells me to view that kind of content on my phone, which somewhat defeats the point. Hopefully this is on Microsoft's list of things to add to Your Phone.

And while some messages appear on the list, the text is missing on older messages.

You can't make calls from the Your Phone app on a Windows 10 computer yet, either. But Microsoft said it's working on it.

Your Phone does something that Apple's Messages ecosystem doesn't: It shows you the last 25 photos you took, and you can click and drag them onto your desktop.

At the end of the day, I'm just happy to send and receive regular text messages on my Windows 10 laptop. I forgot how great that feature was when I left the Apple ecosystem and switched to Android and Windows 10. Microsoft still has some ways to go, but if you use an Android phone and Windows 10, it's absolutely worth setting up. It costs nothing and there's nothing to lose, and it'll surely improve over time.

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