Microsoft is hedging its bets, so to speak, because it perfectly understands that you don’t necessarily want to have a Windows phone to go with your Windows tablet, your Windows laptop and your Windows desktop. Instead, it’s carefully crafting ways to infiltrate your existing devices. You may have noticed the heavier Microsoft integration in the Samsung Galaxy S6, for instance. That’s continuing with the announcement of the Phone Companion app for Windows 10.
In effect, the Phone Companion app will be an app that runs on your Windows 10 PC and it’ll tell you how to set up not only your Windows phone, but also your Android phone (or tablet) or your iPhone (or iPad) so that it “works best” with your Windows 10 PC. It’s a hub, instructing you to download apps like OneNote and OneDrive on your Apple and Google-powered devices. This way, you’ll be able to sync up whatever you’re doing in Outlook, Office, Xbox Music or whatever else.
Perhaps even more notably, Microsoft has also announced that it is porting its Cortana voice assistant over to Google Android and Apple iOS too. It can work in tandem with this Companion App to deliver notifications to your smartphone or tablet. You get the voice-based searches on your mobile device too, but you won’t have the same kind of heavy integration with Cortana as you’d find on a Windows Phone. You won’t be able to open apps, for example, but you will be able to ask about the weather.
All said, this is part of the bigger Microsoft scheme to get you deeper into the Microsoft ecosystem of apps and services. Check out the video below, hand-flailing and all, for more about how all of this is going to work. Expect the companion app to launch alongside the Windows 10 Insider Preview “in a few weeks.”
https://youtu.be/lXREpLEwgOY
Via The Verge