Microsoft’s Phone to PC ‘Resume’ Feature in Windows Can’t…

For over a decade, Apple users have been able to seamlessly work in the same apps across mobile and desktop. Microsoft is finally getting into the same game, but its version is nowhere near as sophisticated. Windows 11’s Resume feature, which lets you pick up…

Windows 11's Resume feature, which lets you pick up on your PC from where you left off on your mobile phone, is finally starting to roll out. And it's about time, since Apple's equivalent Handoff feature has been around since 2014. The Resume and Handoff features are respectively part of Windows' and macOS's Phone Link and Continuity feature sets, which enable you to access photos, see notifications, send messages, and run apps from your phone using your PC.

I put Resume through its paces and found that it falls well short of Apple Handoff in terms of app support and ease of use. Microsoft has plans to extend Resume to support PDFs, Spotify, and more. But, at this stage, it's unclear whether Resume can actually catch up to Handoff, especially given the much wider ecosystem of hardware Microsoft has to support versus Apple. Here's a look at how Resume works at this early stage in its development.

To use Resume, you must have a Windows 11 PC and an Android phone (version 10 or later) from Honor, Oppo, Samsung, Vivo, or Xiaomi. (Note that among these manufacturers, only Samsung officially sells phones to customers in the US.) Then, connect your phone to your PC via Phone Link. Enabling the Resume feature in Windows is a simple matter of opening the Settings app, heading to the Apps section, and finding the Resume section at the bottom of the page.

In the Resume section, you can toggle the feature and choose which apps you want it to work with. To see the feature in action, you need to start a supported activity on your phone before locking or simply restarting your PC. When you get back to your desktop, you should see a notification on the taskbar that suggests you pick up where you left off in the desktop version of the app or its web version if you don’t have it installed.

Currently, only OneDrive and apps that use it for cloud storage can take advantage of the Resume feature—think Excel spreadsheets, OneNote notebooks, and PowerPoint presentations. Edge surprisingly doesn't support this feature, though you can see your history from other devices in that browser if you log in to the same Microsoft account on them. For comparison, Apple Handoff supports not only all of Apple's first-party apps (FaceTime, iWork, Mail, Safari, and so on), but many third-party ones, including Chrome, Firefox, and the Microsoft 365 editors.

Just keep in mind that some of these connections require you to store app data in iCloud or a third-party software maker’s cloud. You also must sign in to the same account on desktop and mobile. Another big missing piece with Windows 11's Resume feature is the ability to move from the desktop to your mobile device. something Apple's Handoff offers. I understand that Microsoft can't control phone hardware as closely as Apple does, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't have a working solution.

To test Resume, I started to edit a document (this article) in the mobile Word app on my Samsung Galaxy phone. I expected to be able to resume my work in the desktop-based Word app on my PC once I unlocked it. However, something slightly strange happened: I saw the notification in the mobile panel next to the Start menu, which was open when I unlocked the PC.  I tried again after actually logging out of my account on the PC, but I got the same result.

Then, I discovered that I had system notifications turned off. After turning those back on, I tried once more, simply locking my PC this time. Upon logging in, I finally saw the Resume icon. Success! Here’s what the taskbar notification icon looks like:  The Word icon niftily incorporates a mobile phone icon, and the notification message couldn’t be clearer. Clicking it successfully opened the document in the desktop Word app—not in a mobile screen-mirroring interface or the online version of the app.  Interestingly, Apple’s Handoff feature doesn’t require you to lock your computer for you to resume work; it just moves your activity fluidly between mobile and desktop devices.

Microsoft's Resume thus has a slight security edge here, whereas Apple's implementation is more convenient. In addition to the aforementioned Resume feature, Windows 11 retains a tool with a confusingly similar name: Phone Link Task Continuity. This pops up a differently type of notification on the right side of the taskbar rather than in the center. It looks like this: Task Continuity has been around longer than Resume, so it unsurprisingly works with more apps and supports document links, music tracks, and website URLs.

But Microsoft is pushing developers toward the newer system, which integrates more seamlessly with the taskbar, so I expect Phone Link Task Continuity to go away at some point. I only hope the transition doesn't cause too many problems or take too long. Apple's consistency and singular vision in this area are very welcome, by comparison. Resume isn't a disaster, but it's not nearly as useful or smooth as Apple's Handoff feature.

Microsoft needs to make it work with all of its first-party, cross-platform apps, as well as popular third-party apps, as soon as possible. Adobe Creative Cloud apps, Google Chrome, Workspace, and far more music and video streaming apps are all good candidates. Resume faces many hurdles, of course, given the variety of Android hardware and software Microsoft needs to deal with, but Apple's features will only get better and more seamless in the meantime.

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