Microsoft will soon let Android users hotspot their phones to Windows using Phone Link

A perk of buying into Apple’s ecosystem is that your phone, tablets, and computers are all very tightly integrated into each other. Obviously this was done on purpose, but it also means that non-iOS and non-macOS users won’t be able to get a similar experience, but it looks like Microsoft is trying to bridge that gap all the same.

According to a report from Windows Central, in the latest Windows 11 preview for Insiders on the Dev Channel, Microsoft has a new update to its Phone Link feature that will allow users to connect to their phone’s mobile hotspot directly from the Windows 11 WiFi panel. This is pretty much the same experience that iPhone and macOS users are enjoying at the moment.

Prior to this, users would need to turn on mobile hotspot on their Android phones, and then open the WiFi panel in Windows 11 and then connect to it. With this update to Phone Link, the connection will be a lot more seamless. You could argue that it’s not a big deal turning on hotspot on your phone, but it does make it slightly more efficient and painless.

That being said, the downside is that the feature only works for Samsung devices running on One UI 4.1.1 or later, so if you happen to own a much older Samsung handset, you won’t be able to take advantage of this feature. We’re also not sure if this will eventually come to other Android phones, so we’ll have to wait and see, but seeing as how Phone Link was created with Samsung devices in mind, we wouldn’t hold our breath.

Source: Windows Central