Windows Phone Link should learn a lesson or two from Apple’s iPhone mirroring

Apple’s new iPhone mirroring It’s probably my favorite iOS add-on in years. This feature allows you to view your iPhone’s screen on a Mac and interact with it from the comfort of your laptop. It’s a handy quality-of-life add-on that’s an easy productivity booster for me, allowing me to focus on the task at hand instead of pulling the phone out of my pocket or bag to check a notification. However, this feature may be “innovative” for iPhone users but it is certainly not new for the Android world.

I’ve been involved in software and services for years push bullet and KDE Connect to bridge the gap between my computer and my phone. But it goes without saying that only a first-party approach can bring these two platforms together seamlessly. This got me thinking about how the two experiences compare. So I took out my old self Samsung flagship and I did just that. Here’s a quick comparison between screen mirroring iOS 18 and Samsung-Windows integration in Phone Link.

Let’s start with the basics. Setting up Apple’s screen mirroring feature is as easy as signing in with your Apple ID on either device (iPhone and Mac). No QR code, no pairing menu; just seamless integration.

As long as you’re running the latest version of macOS, the permanent iPhone-style button at the bottom of the screen gives you easy access to your iPhone. When you tap the button, your phone turns on the screen. From here, you can navigate your iPhone as usual using swipes on your Mac’s trackpad or mouse input.

Samsung’s integration with Windows is the exact opposite. If you’re using Windows 11, the Phone Link app comes pre-installed. But on my dusty ASUS laptop Phone Link app On the App Store to download. This in itself is not a big deal.

Next, you’ll need to sign in to a Microsoft account, scan a QR code on your phone, and accept a confusingly long series of permissions and authentication prompts. It’s not particularly difficult, but it’s much more cumbersome than the one-click approach Apple offers and may scare away less technically minded users.

The overall level of technical proficiency required to use Telephone Link also tends to be higher. For example, until recently Phone Link required you to grant permission to enable screen mirroring on the phone every time. However, if I need to take out my phone to enable mirroring, I can use my phone as well. It makes the whole exercise pretty useless. Fortunately, in recent updates this issue has been resolved and it is now possible to grant permanent permissions and enable screen mirroring directly from the computer.

There was also a significant difference in actual user experience between these. Navigating the iPhone interface on the Mac is extremely smooth, and it appears to be locked at 60Hz, which is impressive for wireless connectivity. I dropped my iPhone somewhere MagSafe When I need to use an app like my 2-factor authenticator or banking apps, I access the charging dock via screen mirroring. It’s surprising how well it works.

In contrast, the mirroring experience between my Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra and my wired laptop lacked the brightness you’d expect. It’s choppy to the point that I’m not particularly keen on using it. For context, I’m on a fast Wi-Fi network and the S22 Ultra is modern enough that it’s not a hardware issue. Moreover, a cursory look at the internet shows that this is not an isolated problem and users with more modern Samsung hardware are also facing the same problem.

And then there are fundamental differences in approach. For example, the iPhone screen cannot be used when in screen mirroring mode. So, if you left your phone in your study, for example, and you access it remotely, you won’t be able to access the phone’s screen. And if you unlock the iPhone, the screen mirroring session is instantly disconnected.

This makes sense from a security perspective and prevents bad actors from infiltrating your phone’s screen if you’re using your phone from across the office or even from home. Samsung’s app works a little differently. While Samsung lets you mask the screen, pressing the power button bypasses the lock screen entirely, making it easier for anyone to spy on your phone while you’re working remotely.

Elsewhere, both phones can mirror notifications on your computer screen; This is useful for tracking things like food delivery apps. Clicking on a corresponding notification on macOS opens the app in the screen mirroring interface and allows you to interact with it. I’d appreciate it if things like calendar notifications opened the relevant calendar app on my Mac instead, but maybe that’s a future thing.

This feature works almost the same as Windows Phone Link. Tapping a notification triggers a screen mirroring session and drops you directly into the app (like on iPhone), but there’s a catch. Most of the time, you’ll have to enter your lock screen password to take a screenshot on your laptop, making the feature pretty useless. The exception to this rule is if you receive links in the notification. For example, I use Pushbullet very often to push website links to my devices. With Phone Link, I can tap the notification and open the link directly in Edge.

You’ll also find similar feature support for things like call notifications and management, messages, and fast mobile hotspots. But feature parity is only one aspect of creating an ecosystem. The app is key, and this is where the iPhone + Mac ecosystem wins by a mile. Native macOS apps facetime and iMessage also supports standard phone calls and messages. This means you’ll get deep integration for responding to phone calls and text messages on Mac. In fact, if you’re fully immersed in the Apple ecosystem, you can take phone calls or reply to messages across the entire range, including the iPad and Apple Watch.

Phone Link’s integration isn’t that solid. You can certainly make, receive, or send a text message from your phone, but you’ll need to open the clunky all-in-one Phone Link app to access the dialer. Compared to messages on macOS, I noticed a noticeable delay in the speed at which new messages appeared in Phone Connection. Similarly, notifications weren’t exactly instantaneous. Functionally, they both work the same, but the dedicated apps for calling and messaging built into macOS make the user experience much better in terms of reliability, speed, and aesthetics if that’s important to you.

Of course, it’s not that bad considering Phone Link. A few unique features may make it a better choice for you. First, the Phone Link app can display the full list of apps on your Samsung phone. Once you tap the app it will automatically launch on the phone and trigger a screen mirroring instance. You can even launch two apps simultaneously for better multitasking performance. If you’re in the Apple ecosystem, there’s no direct equivalent to this other than turning on the iPhone’s screen and looking for an app.

Elsewhere, Phone Link can pull photos from your phone and display them directly in the Phone Link interface. It’s a fast and convenient way to take screenshots or recent photos. Phone connectivity also lets you drag and drop files from Windows File Explorer to the Android phone (or vice versa). It works very well and has no direct alternative on the iPhone, but Apple says the feature is coming soon. Other features include dashboard sharing, available on both platforms.

Phone Link manages to succeed in other ways, too. For example, unlike Apple’s iPhone and Mac integration, Phone Link also works over mobile data. It also makes it easier to switch devices if you have more than one paired phone. It’s right there in the app, rather than diving deep into system settings to find the iOS equivalent.

While we are on the subject of integration between devices, it should be said that Apple has been making progress in this direction for many years. Additions such as the ability to use iPhone as wireless webcam Having exceptionally good quality or opening a phone’s camera as a browser directly within document editing apps goes well beyond anything Phone Link currently offers.

Of course, Samsung Galaxy phones can achieve wireless camera capabilities using the dedicated camera sharing feature, and Pixel phones can also be used as USB webcams. However, both features lack the seamlessness offered by the iPhone and Mac ecosystem. And that’s before we even mention features like center stage, portrait mode, and even the ability to use the ultrawide camera for top-down shots. There is no equivalent in the Android world. Whether I’m participating in a Zoom call or a remote discussion on television, my iPhone has become my webcam of choice.

All this to say, there’s good feature parity between iOS 18’s screen mirroring feature and Phone Link. However, the two take a very different approach and manage to complement each other in a few small but notable ways. Given the feature overlap and subtle platform-specific additions, it’s hard to pick a straight winner between the two. If you value tight integration and clean aesthetics, Apple’s offering is hard to beat. This is the kind of vertical integration that can realistically only occur if the hardware and software stack are built by a single organization. But if it’s functionality you’re looking for, Phone Link will get you there best.

As for me, Apple may have been late to the party, but it convinced me with its impressive performance.