Sharing information or accessing messages between a Home windows PC and an iPhone could be an utter ache within the rear, largely as a result of, with out third-party utilities, you possibly can’t depend on AirDrop to do it. There’s the Telephone Hyperlink app, however even that requires opening up a separate window—your PC received’t even be capable of serve you iMessage notifications until it’s open. In the meantime, Android customers presently have a smoother expertise, in a position to entry their linked telephones’ battery ranges, messages, and calls proper from the Home windows Begin menu. Now, iPhone customers are lastly about to get the identical.
In a weblog put up on its web site, Microsoft introduced that its Home windows Insider beta testers are presently getting expanded Begin menu telephone integration, bringing options Android customers have been having fun with since October to iPhone.
These embody the power to attach a telephone to your PC proper from the beginning menu, plus that battery standing and message/name info (seemingly, you will lastly be capable of get your iPhone notifications on Home windows without having to open the Telephone Hyperlink app first). The one factor that seems to be lacking is the power to browse your photographs proper from the beginning menu, however that doesn’t imply you received’t be capable of entry them.
That’s because of the brand new “Ship information” button, an addition for each Android and iPhone. It will allow you to entry your telephone’s information with out having to undergo the Telephone Hyperlink app, and it ought to make photograph sharing a lot less complicated, as doing so with an iPhone presently requires counting on both one other take a look at characteristic or going by way of the multi-step course of to attach iCloud to the Home windows Pictures app.
To see iPhone integration within the Home windows 11 Begin menu, you’ll must have an iPhone working iOS 16 or greater (that means nothing older than an iPhone 8), plus the Telephone Hyperlink app on each your iPhone and Home windows 11 PC. You’ll additionally must register for the free Home windows Insider program, however most significantly, you’ll want to attend.
Microsoft says these options are “step by step rolling out to Home windows Insiders within the Dev and Beta Channels,” so simply being signed up may not be sufficient to entry them at first. You’ll be able to test in case you have them by navigating to Settings > Personalization > Begin.