Dell Announces Screen Mirroring and File Transfer Between IOS and Windows

At CES 2020, Dell is announcing a major upgrade to Dell Mobile Connect. Dell’s Mobile Connect app is the company’s phone companion app that allows users to control their phone from their Dell device.

The app has already been quite powerful for Android users, but Dell is bringing some of those functionalities to iPhones now.

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Sometime in Spring of this year, Dell plans to introduce a new update to Mobile Connecton on iOS that will bring the ability to wirelessly transfer files between your iPhone and PC. But more importantly, the app will allow users to mirror their iPhone’s screen on their Dell device.

“This spring Dell Mobile Connect will expand its wireless transfer and app mirroring capabilities beyond Android phones and bring these functions to iOS phone users12. XPS, Inspiron, Vostro, Alienware and G Series users with iOS phones will be able to directly access their favorite mobile apps, from rideshare to social media, and take advantage of drag-and-drop file transfer and content mirroring straight from their Dell PC,” the company said in a press release.

The feature here is very interesting mainly because of the limitations that are in place on iOS. Microsoft’s Your Phone app only allows users to screen mirror from their Android phone, and that’s the same case with file transfer. Dell has obviously managed to come over the iOS limitations, and it’s possible the company is using iOS’ screen recording API to mirror the screen. It’s not clear if you would be able to interact with your iPhone from your Dell device via screen mirroring, though (and I doubt that will ever be possible). As for file transfer, that’s another mystery in itself. Still, we can’t really say if Dell has done something amazing till we actually get to try the feature out later this Spring.

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Conversation 7 comments

  • PeterC

    02 January, 2020 - 10:40 am

    <p>Now this is interesting, I wonder why MS haven’t done something like this with your phone app yet? Maybe because they want to build out their offering on android going forward, but this from dell gets me curious…..</p>

    • SvenJ

      02 January, 2020 - 11:49 am

      <blockquote><a href="#508787"><em>In reply to PeterC:</em></a><em> </em>Still thing that is a dumb name. If I'm on my PC, why would I want to control Your Phone? I want to control My Phone.</blockquote><p><br></p>

      • PeterC

        02 January, 2020 - 12:07 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#508840">In reply to SvenJ:</a></em></blockquote><p>?</p>

  • maxleibman

    02 January, 2020 - 11:00 am

    <p>It’s not technically inconceivable that Dell’s app could allow interaction with the phone. iOS 13 added mouse support, even on iPhone; I can</p><p>imagine an app on Windows making a bluetooth connection to the mirrored iPhone and piping over input from the PC’s keyboard and mouse as if they were bluetooth peripherals. But I would be shocked if Apple would let that through the app review process. (Personally, I hope they do.)</p>

  • SvenJ

    02 January, 2020 - 11:47 am

    <blockquote>"<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It’s not clear if you would be able to interact with your iPhone from your Dell device via screen mirroring, though"</span></blockquote><blockquote>Seems that " App mirroring to control your favorite mobile apps on your PC" kind of implies that functionality.</blockquote>

  • bart

    Premium Member
    02 January, 2020 - 11:49 am

    <p>How long before Apple kills this? Obviously I hope it is something Dell and Apple been working on together, but yeah….never mind</p>

  • jaredthegeek

    Premium Member
    02 January, 2020 - 12:16 pm

    <p>I have the Dell app loaded on a surface device and its fantastic compared to the MS implementation. The Dell app looks a little Win 7 but performs much better than MS.</p>

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