Microsoft’s Phone Link is one of the apps keeping the Windows-Android/iPhone ecosystem alive, and it’s gotten a lot better in the last few years. However, one of the major things that were missing on Phone Link for iPhone was file transfers. Microsoft is finally addressing that as it’s rolling out a new update to Phone Link for Windows Insiders that brings file transfer capabilities to an iPhone.
In a blog post, Microsoft shared that it’s rolling out a new update to the Phone Link — version 1.24112.73 on Windows and 1.24112.73 on iPhone. The update brings the ability to effortlessly transfer files from iPhone to Windows and vice versa.
The file transfer process is similar to Android where the user can use the share option on iPhone and select Phone Link to transfer a file. Similarly, you can use the Share option in Windows’ context menu and select your iPhone to share. However, we wish Microsoft would leverage the Start menu Phone Link integration and we could just drag and drop files to transfer them with ease.
The update to Phone Link is rolling out gradually. We couldn’t test it out, unfortunately, because the latest version hasn’t rolled out on my iPhone 14 Plus running iOS 18.2.
It may look like Microsoft has invested a lot more on the Android side than iPhone, but that’s majorly due to iOS’ closed nature and Apple’s stringent privacy rules to not allow apps to access system elements.
What are your thoughts on Phone Link integration on Android and iOS? What else should Microsoft do to get it right? Let us know in the comments below.
