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Microsoft quietly makes 'Your Phone' Android app available to mainstream Windows 10 users

Microsoft briefly rolled out out its 'My Phone' app for Windows 10 more broadly. There are also new Insider test builds of its 'Redstone 5' Windows client and Server and Patch Tuesday fixes for many Win 10 variants.
Written by Mary Jo Foley, Senior Contributing Editor

Microsoft is no longer requiring Windows 10 users to be running "Insider" test builds to use the Microsoft "Your Phone" app. The Your Phone app for Android phones will work with mainstream Windows 10 releases -- at least the 1803 "Spring Creators Update" build in the U.S. -- as of this week.

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Credit: Microsoft

(I've asked Microsoft if Your Phone is working with Windows 10 1803 for Android users who are not Insiders outside of North America, but no word back yet.)

Update: Microsoft seemingly has revoked the ability for those using a non-Insider build of Windows 10 to access the Your Phone app, according to an August 15 tweet from a Program Management in charge of Your Phone.

Back to the original story:

Microsoft hasn't publicized availability of Your Phone to non-Insiders as of today, August 14. But I -- along with a number of other Android phone users who are not running an Insider preview of Windows 10 on their PCs -- were able to get the app to work after seeing a post from Neowin.net about its availability.

Users can download the My Phone app for Windows 10 from the Microsoft Store here and subsequently connect their phones to it.

The Microsoft Your Phone app is designed to allow Android and iOS phones to more tightly synchronize with Windows 10 PCs. So far, the Android Your Phone app only allows users to share their most recent 25 Android phone photos with their Windows 10 desktops. The iPhone version of the app can do even less; it only currently allows users to share Web pages they were browsing on their phones with their Windows 10 PCs. So far, the iOS version of Your Phone only works for those running Windows 10 Insider test builds.

Ultimately, Microsoft is planning to expand Your Phone so it can do more. Microsoft has said it plans to use Your Phone to allow users to make calls; send and receive SMS messages and more. The app will be able to do more on Android phones than iPhones because of Apple's tight control over iOS.

In other Windows 10 news, Microsoft released today, April 14, another new "Redstone 5" preview build to Fast Ring testers. There are no new features in Build 17738; it's all fixes. There are also a substantial list of known issues itemized in the blog post about the build.

Redstone 5 is expected to start rolling out to mainstream users around October 2018.

Microsoft also released another new preview of Windows Server 2019 (and the accompanying Semi-Annual Release Channel 1809 test builds) on August 14. There also are no new features in today's 17733 Server builds; just a bunch of fixes. (Support for HTTP/2 and CUBIC already were announced.)

Windows Server 2019 and Server 1809 are also expected to start rolling out to mainstream users around October this year.

Because it also happens to be Patch Tuesday today, Microsoft is rolling out a bunch of Cumulative Updates to the many flavors of Windows 10 today, as well. There are quite a few updates in the Cumulative Updates for 1803 (the "Spring Creators Update"); 1709 (the "Fall Creators Update"); 1703 (the "Creators Update"); 1607 (the "Anniversary Update") and even the original Windows 10 release (1507). Neowin has a rundown of what's patched.

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