Microsoft Now Rolling Out iMessage Support on Windows With Several Limitations
Microsoft today announced it is beginning to roll out iPhone support to the Phone Link app on Windows 11. In a blog post, the company said this functionality will be available to all Windows 11 users around the world by mid-May.
With the Phone Link app for Windows 11 and the Link to Windows app for iOS, iPhone users can make and receive phone calls, send and receive text messages, and view notifications directly on their PC. Notably, this means Windows 11 kind of supports iMessage, although there are several limitations, including a lack of support for group chats, photos, videos, and conversation history beyond the current chat session.
All messages appear as gray bubbles in the Phone Link app, meaning iMessages and SMS text messages cannot be differentiated on a PC. In addition, messages are only delivered to a PC while the iPhone is connected via Bluetooth. Microsoft says the iPhone must be running iOS 14 or later, and this feature is not available for the iPad or Mac.
All in all, this is a rather clunky workaround to Apple's lack of true iMessage support on Windows, but it's better than nothing for iPhone users with a PC. Microsoft had been testing iOS support for the Phone Link app in beta since February.
Popular Stories
Apple has stopped production of FineWoven accessories, according to the Apple leaker and prototype collector known as "Kosutami." In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Kosutami explained that Apple has stopped production of FineWoven accessories due to its poor durability. The company may move to another non-leather material for its premium accessories in the future. Kosutami has revealed...
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
The upcoming iOS 17.5 update for the iPhone includes only a few new user-facing features, but hidden code changes reveal some additional possibilities. Below, we have recapped everything new in the iOS 17.5 and iPadOS 17.5 beta so far. Web Distribution Starting with the second beta of iOS 17.5, eligible developers are able to distribute their iOS apps to iPhone users located in the EU...
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
The lead developer of the multi-emulator app Provenance has told iMore that his team is working towards releasing the app on the App Store, but he did not provide a timeframe. Provenance is a frontend for many existing emulators, and it would allow iPhone and Apple TV users to emulate games released for a wide variety of classic game consoles, including the original PlayStation, SEGA Genesis,...
Apple Vision Pro, Apple's $3,500 spatial computing device, appears to be following a pattern familiar to the AR/VR headset industry – initial enthusiasm giving way to a significant dip in sustained interest and usage. Since its debut in the U.S. in February 2024, excitement for the Apple Vision Pro has noticeably cooled, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Writing in his latest Power On...
Top Rated Comments
Having said that, the entire selling point of Macs is iMessage capabilities and there’s also Apple’s walled security garden, so in general, I don’t see this lasting very long … as nice as it would be to have.
/jk