One thing we by no means thought we’d see occur has, the truth is, occurred. Within the newest replace to its Cellphone Hyperlink app for Home windows, the tech large is bringing assist to the Apple iPhone – most notably, iMessage for Home windows 11.

In response to Microsoft’s official weblog (opens in new tab) and reported by The Verge (opens in new tab), the Cellphone Hyperlink app works by mirroring your telephone in your PC for notifications, telephone calls, and messages. With this replace, iPhone customers can now join their units to a Home windows laptop computer or PC, ship messages via iMessage, make and obtain calls, and get notifications via Home windows 11.

In an interview with The Verge, Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s head of client advertising and marketing, explains the way it works. “We ship the messages backwards and forwards through Bluetooth, Apple I feel in flip sends these as iMessage as soon as it will get onto their system.” 

As spectacular as this sounds, there are some setbacks concerned.

Customers gained’t be capable of see the complete message historical past, solely ones despatched or acquired via Cellphone Hyperlink. You additionally gained’t see any blue or inexperienced chat bubbles because the system can’t inform between an everyday textual content message and an iMessage one. Nonetheless, it is a shocking and massive step in the correct path, one that might open up much more options and assist sooner or later like images integration. 

For those who’re fascinated about testing this function, Microsoft will start beta testing with a small proportion of Home windows Insiders who’re within the Dev, Beta, and Launch Preview channels. “We are going to enhance the provision of the preview to extra Insiders over time and based mostly on suggestions we obtain with this primary set of Insiders,” based on the official weblog put up.

This new replace additionally comes with a number of different options like AI Bing and chat-powered searches on the taskbar, a display recording function, higher contact optimizations, and extra.