Want Windows on your iPhone? Microsoft’s made it happen anyway with its new app

You can now get Windows on your Apple iPhone, iPad, or Mac – sort of – with Microsoft’s latest innovation for its operating system, although this currently comes with a sizable catch (more on that later).

Of course, we’re not talking about a full-blown installation of the desktop OS, but rather, the new Windows App from Microsoft.

The application allows you to stream a Windows 11 desktop from a remote PC to your Apple device (or indeed another Windows device, or anything with a browser). Or alternatively you can stream a Windows 365 instance, or other options like Azure Virtual Desktop.

The Windows App is essentially a hub to facilitate streaming whichever instances you want to a given device. It packs support for multi-monitor setups, and device redirection to allow for the use of connected hardware like printers, webcams, speakers and so on hooked up to the device that the app is running on.

The Windows App is currently in preview – so expect potential flakiness – and available for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and Windows itself. Those streaming a Windows desktop instance via a web browser don’t have to install any software at all.


Analysis: A business move, but that could change

Windows App

(Image credit: Microsoft)

So, that catch we mentioned: as well as it being a beta, the Windows App only works for Microsoft business accounts, not personal accounts – yet. 

But as The Verge, which picked up on the app’s release, points out, the login on the Windows version of the Windows app seemingly has an option to use a personal Microsoft account, it just doesn’t work yet.

That’s not exactly surprising as this is a beta, which is the other caveat here – not everything will necessarily work properly yet. This is a more than a hopeful suggestion that consumers will be able to use the app and stream a remote PC to their Apple (or other) device eventually, come release.

Of course, another omission here is the lack of Android support, and presumably that’s something else that will be in the pipeline.

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Google Workspace doesn’t really need AI, but you’re getting it anyway

Google has followed the herd and announced a host of new artificial intelligence (AI) expansion for its  is coming to its collaboration tool for enterprise.

The tech giant announced the new Google Workspace feature set, which includes the ability to draft new content and refine existing work in Google Docs , and gives Google Slides the opportunity to generate images from text prompts. 

However given that Microsoft has had their finger in this pie since March 2023, and has just announced a similar text-to-image tool for PowerPoint, it’s hard for us to get especially excited about any of this – for now. 

Google Slides Duet AI Workspace

(Image credit: Google)

Google’s collaborative AI

Everyone’s at it, which is good, I suppose – you’re not beholden to one provider if you’re dying to use the latest tech gimmick. I just wish tech companies remembered that they’re supposed to have original ideas.

But in lieu of that, have this – Google Sheets will now – yawn – analyze and provide actionable insights into your data, with automated data classification and the creation of custom plans. 

Google Sheets io ai duet

(Image credit: Google)

At the center of this is – yep – AI that can understand the context of your data beyond just the content of a cell. A new “help me organize” function will, even though you’re an adult, generate a comprehensive to-do list based on the homework you need your mum’s help with.

Docs won’t just do your work for you (including grammatically correct, “professional-grade” in French, Spanish, Japanese and “more”) – it’ll use its proprietary “smart chip” technology to help personalize it, so now you can, say, entice bright, inspired job applicants into your web until you finally break it to them gently that the machines are running the place.

Places like gig economy bandwagoner Lyft, that wrote, or had a computer write, without any sense of irony, that “[Lyft] is excited [!] to test out the new generative Workplace experiences [!!]”.

Google deigns to assure us that it continues to believe in the “ingenuity of real people”, characterizing its AI’s work as “suggestions”. It’s all a bit “Gizmo has gone to live on a farm with her other dog friends” to me, but at least, if you’re an IT admin, you’re being given the policy power to make the hurting stop.

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