Your Phone Gets Pen Support in Windows 10

Microsoft has been frequently updating the Your Phone app with new features. The app has quickly grown to be a really powerful companion app for your phone on Windows 10 if you have an Android device, and Microsoft is adding yet another new feature to make the app even more useful.

As you may know, Your Phone lets you mirror your phone’s screen on your Windows 10 device. The mirroring feature lets you use your Windows 10 device’s keyboard, mouse, and touch display to interact with your phone.

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And now, Your Phone is getting support for pens. That means you will now be able to interact with your phone screen using accessories like the Surface Pen. So if you need to draw something on your phone, for example, you can simply do so from your Windows 10 device’s screen using the stylus you already have.

It’s not clear if the pen support works well with things like pen pressure, or if there’s a major input delay. I am assuming there will be a small amount of delay, but that’s obviously not anything surprising considering the screen is being mirrored.

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Conversation 8 comments

  • PeterC

    10 December, 2019 - 9:03 am

    <p>Excellent new feature. For me this is really really useful now, let alone where it’s going as a dev path. </p>

  • wolters

    Premium Member
    10 December, 2019 - 9:25 am

    <p>I've been using YourPhone regularly when I started with my Note 10+ and now my Pixel 4XL. Now that Android Messages has RCS abilities, I'd like to see this brought over to YourPhone next. </p>

    • nickysreensaver

      Premium Member
      10 December, 2019 - 10:07 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#497172">In reply to wolters:</a></em></blockquote><p>I've been sending feedback for RCS for years now. No dice. File it in feedback. If we want it en masse they have to at least acknowledge </p>

  • glenn8878

    10 December, 2019 - 10:33 am

    <p>Okay, this is pretty useless in most cases.</p>

  • earlster

    Premium Member
    10 December, 2019 - 12:21 pm

    <p>The other way would IMHO be more useful. Use a phone with a pen (Note 10, etc.) as a writing surface to draw in pen enabled windows apps. Similar to that pen digitizer next to the touch-pad in that latest surface patent.</p>

  • Rob_Wade

    10 December, 2019 - 12:41 pm

    <p>I tried it out. It's SLOW AS MOLASSES. And, I agree with Glenn8878. The only real use-case I can imagine, having tried this on my S10, is if you need to write something via an app that's ONLY available on Android but the device itself doesn't support pen input (like the S10, as opposed to the Note 10). This would be your work around. </p><p><br></p><p>Otherwise, if you already have sync of documents (like Office products) you could simply open the app on your PC (like a Surface Pro) and add your pen inputs and they would show up on the phone anyway. That's the smarter way to do it anyway. So, yeah, very limited use-case for this. It works, but it's very slow for very little unique value.</p>

  • BarryWallis

    10 December, 2019 - 1:37 pm

    <p>"<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">So if you need to draw something on your phone…"</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">I don't think I've ever needed to draw something on my phone. </span></p>

  • amirasmith313

    11 December, 2019 - 11:56 am

    <p>thanks for sharing this&nbsp;<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">inform<span class="ql-cursor"></span>ation&nbsp;</span></p><p><br></p>

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