Microsoft’s Phone Link is a pretty nifty software that allows your Android phone to connect to your Microsoft PC, and control just about most function on your phone regardless of model or brand. It is as close as PC users can get to Continuity that iPhones get when used with Mac devices. Thanks to Microsoft, a feature previously thought only available for iPhone and Mac users may soon come to a PC near you.
Based on codes seen on an upcoming version of the Phone Link app on Android, it is suggesting that Microsoft is looking to enable your Android to provide a video stream to your Windows PC. This essentially turns your Android phone into a webcam for your PC.
Some of the strings seen in the codebase include keywords like
- Tap this notification to allow your PC to stream your camera video
- Pause Video
- Resume Video
- Switch to Front/Back
Which suggest that the Phone Link app may get full access to the onboard camera to stream higher quality video from the phone to your PC. This is good news because even the main cameras on most midrange smartphones are leagues better than the built-in webcams you see in laptops and for desktops, there are no built-in webcams (usually).
Apple’s Continuity Camera mode allows the same thing – connect the cameras on the iPhone to allow the Mac to access the higher fidelity cameras available on the iphone for video conferencing/recording and more uniquely, Desk View where the camera on the iPhone can be used as an overhead camera for subjects in front of it, like it is mounted overhead the table. This was introduced with MacOS 13 Ventura.
So far, we don’t know if Microsoft can replicate most of the features in Apple’s Continuity Camera mode, but the fact that they are working to enable video streaming using the cameras on connected Android devices without using third-party apps is great news already. No more low-grade video in Zoom or Google Meeting streams in the future.
[SOURCE]
