In 2018, Microsoft first released the Your Phone app for Windows 10 allowing owners of Android products to access their photos and messages on a Windows PC. Microsoft later added many other features to the app over the years, including a way to make phone calls on Windows PCs via Android phones.
In 2022, the app got an update that changed its name to Phone Link while the Android companion app got a name change to Link to Windows. In 2023, Phone Link finally added support for Apple's iPhones as well.
Now, a new report claims it has found code strings in the Link to Windows Android app, which shows that a future update could allow Android devices to connect to the Phone Link app on Windows so the phone could serve as a streaming webcam for Windows PCs.
The article by Android Authority, based on an APK teardown of the Link to Windows app, states:
These strings indicate that once Microsoft’s Phone Link app is working on both connected devices, users would be able to start a camera stream that lets their phone’s camera be available to their Windows PC. The strings do not explicitly mention “webcam,” but other clues indicate that the feature would be related to video calls in some ways.
The article adds that other code strings indicate this feature could allow users to add some kind of effects to that video stream, although details of that string were not revealed. The story does speculate that if this feature is in active development, it may only be used by smartphones that use Link to Windows as a system app.
It's important to note that this kind of APK code examination does not mean Microsoft is, in fact, actively working on such a new feature for the Link to Windows app. Microsoft has yet to confirm or deny it is adding such a feature to the app.
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