Microsoft Phone Link May Soon Let You Use Your Android Phone As a Webcam (androidauthority.com) 35
Microsoft Phone Link, previously known as Microsoft Your Phone, lets you control your Android phone from your computer. Now, the company appears to be working on letting you use your Android phone as a webcam with Windows computers, similar to how you can use your iPhone as a webcam on Mac. Android Authority reports: Microsoft's Link to Windows v1.23102.190.0 for Android app includes code that suggests that the company is working on letting your Android phone provide a video stream to your Windows PC. This would effectively allow it to be used as a webcam. [...] These strings indicate that once Microsoft's Phone Link app is working on both connected devices, users would be able to start a camera stream that lets their phone's camera be available to their Windows PC. The strings do not explicitly mention "webcam," but other clues indicate that the feature would be related to video calls in some ways.
Phone Link can already access your camera and video conferencing apps, but this is just mirroring apps running on your phone. What you see on your phone screen is what you see on the computer. If you record a video, it gets saved to your phone as typical video recordings do. With the new functionality spotted above, Phone Link could potentially compete against Apple's Continuity Camera features. With Continuity Camera, users can mount their iPhone to their Mac and then use the iPhone's camera and microphone for FaceTime or other camera apps.
Phone Link can already access your camera and video conferencing apps, but this is just mirroring apps running on your phone. What you see on your phone screen is what you see on the computer. If you record a video, it gets saved to your phone as typical video recordings do. With the new functionality spotted above, Phone Link could potentially compete against Apple's Continuity Camera features. With Continuity Camera, users can mount their iPhone to their Mac and then use the iPhone's camera and microphone for FaceTime or other camera apps.
Why? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
we always need to copy apple... are they so good or we are so bad?
1. "We" aren't Microsoft.
2. Apple is an evil company that makes good products. Microsoft is an evil company that makes bad products.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Why? (Score:4, Informative)
Good products don't need vendor lock in.
Re: (Score:1)
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Good products don't need vendor lock in.
No matter how good your product is, some customers will leave if the cost is too high.
Vendor lock-in allows Apple to jack up prices more than they otherwise could.
The first iPhone was $500. Current iPhones are $1000.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
DroidCam does this with any cheap Android phone, a webcam or zoom/goto/etc source as a Windows Device.
Microsoft brilliantly thought up another solution to a problem that has been solved LONG AGO and believed it unique-- because it was invented at Microsoft.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft never claimed to invent anything. They implemented a functionality in the OS. Nothing more, nothing less. Apple has done the same. Where was your criticism then?
Some of us have enough problems with sharing our data and our devices with just a couple of companies without being forced to reach out to 100s more for some functionality.
But that is the duality of Slashdot. MS doesn't implement something = basic, lack of functionality. MS does implement something = bloatware, why not use app X instead!
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There are more than a couple of companies. Take Amazon, as an example.
App stores are the same madness that telco bundling deals are-- designed to make it tough to switch and keep you loyally paying their fees, hidden "taxes", and bloviating your life.
Microsoft carefully looked at well-implemented ideas, historically, then copied the hell out of them and slapped their own labels on the copy-- once assured that they wouldn't be successfully sued.
XBox was a bit of success and gaming revenues keep margins high
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On the other hand, some people never become customers in the first place, either because the cost is too high or because of the said vendor lock-in. In the USA all the Apple hardware is essentially mandatory due to peer pressure. Far less so in Europe.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
we always need to copy apple... are they so good or we are so bad?
Better question: Why do we need to pretend Apple invented things? As far as I can tell we're copying the many different software packages offering this functionality which well and truly predated Apple's native support, which Apple probably copied from IVCam or one of the many other non Apple developed apps on the iPhone.
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There are tons of examples of using Phones as cameras, not just Mac.
The reason is simple enough. For whatever reason even a relatively budget phone has a 50MP camera and a 13MP "crappy" camera with very tuned image/video capture stack to get good quality. On the other hand, even if you buy a dedicated purpose webcam for a PC, it tends to be a 1MP with no tuning that barely competes with a 20 year old dumb phone with a camera. Even if you splurge on a "nice" webcam, you get 2MP with similarly basic level
Re: Why? (Score:2)
Because this is super useful. I've never once had a camera on a desktop computer and this has meant I have to use my phone for certain apps (ID verification, check depositing, etc.). It would have been nice to be able to get the desktop experience for these services.
Re: (Score:1)
DroidCam OBS (Score:4, Informative)
I've been using DroidCam for Open Broadcast Studio for a year and the results are great.
https://www.dev47apps.com/obs/ [dev47apps.com]
Alternative Android App: IP Webcam (Score:3)
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ffs (Score:2)
Windows May Soon Spy On You From Your Phone Too (Score:2)
Microsoft using your Android as a Web cam? (Score:2)
I thought they already do that!
datamining spyware galore (Score:2)
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I promise you that this is not the final link that allows both to spy on you simultaneously...
Re: datamining spyware galore (Score:2)
If your OEM is Google, like for Pixels. Or you run a custom ROM. For anyone else, there's the extra MITM OEM - be it Samsung, Huawei, Acer,..
Long banned from the mobile market, MS wants to partycrash the datafest, too, or we'd totally forget the even existed.
Or you could go open source instead... (Score:4, Informative)
But there are plenty of apps that turn your phone into a webcam in the various app stores. I had best usage with droidcam, but there's going to be plenty open source app alternatives too. https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com]
am i back in 2015? (Score:2)
Should be a stock android feature. (Score:3)
I am honestly unsure why this hasn't been a feature of Android for a long time. It should be part of the USB mode selection when you plug your phone into a computer. "USB Webcam"
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New features for Windows ... (Score:3)
consist of things that people have been doing with 3rd party apps for years
or things that windows has done for years but are under used ...
On Linux (Score:3)
I wish they had Phone Link for Mac (Score:2)
Not everyone who uses a Mac likes iPhone.
New features, same old bugs (Score:2)
They still haven't fixed the bug where if you mirror your phone screen to the desktop, it holds onto the sound channel even after you've shut the mirror off. This happened when they added phone sound to desktop as a feature. "We listened to your requests..." Yeah, but it's broke. Thanks a lot guys.
Took me days to figure out why my computer wouldn't sleep. Finally figured out you had to shut down and restart Phone Link and then the system hold is removed. Thank goodness it doesn't do it until after you mirro