Windows will soon mirror smartphone apps on your PC

Whether it’s a busy professional life or nonstop personal life, we often alternate between our PCs and smartphones to get things done. Microsoft aims to reduce this switching for select Samsung Galaxy owners with its new Your Phone Apps feature.

Raspberry Pi 2 arrives for $35 & will support Windows 10 Windows 10 enterprise upgrades: Microsoft to demand payment Windows 10 won't boost Microsoft's tablet sales until 2016 Windows 10 Technical Preview bags first update

Your Phone Apps will live within the existing Windows 10 Your Phone app and will allow you to connect your Samsung Galaxy smartphone and run certain apps right on your PC. All you do is open the Your Phone app in Windows 10, click “Apps” on the left and choose the app you want to run through your PC.

This won’t physically run the app on your computer. Instead, it’ll mirror the app from your Samsung Galaxy to your Windows 10 PC. With this mirroring comes some issues that Microsoft is aware of:

Some apps may block casting abilities, resulting in a black screen
Some apps aren’t compatible with a PC keyboard or mouse
Audio will continue playing on your smartphone, not the PC, while casting
Initially, you can cast only one app at a time

With Your Phone Apps enabled, if you’re at your PC and need to access a smartphone app for something, there’s no need to dig into your pocket for your phone. Instead, you can just launch the app on your PC, get the information you need and carry on.

Beyond interacting with smartphone apps on your PC, Your Phone Apps also allows you to add frequently used apps to a favorites section and pin apps to your Windows Task Bar or Start menu.

Before you can run Your Phone Apps on your PC, you must link your smartphone to the Your Phone Windows 10 app. You can do this by dragging down from the top of your smartphone, clicking “Link to Windows” and following the on-screen prompts.

Your Phone Apps is still in beta testing, and Microsoft hasn’t announced when it’ll be available to the general public. It’s also limited to only select Samsung Galaxy smartphones, including: