Samsung announced a lot of new things last night. But more importantly, it announced an expansion of its existing partnership with Microsoft. Both the companies have been working together for a while, with Samsung shipping some of Microsoft’s apps pre-installed on its Galaxy products for ages. This week, both the firms are expanding their partnership with new integrations and experiences.

Here’s everything you need to know:

• Link to Windows: Samsung’s new Galaxy Note 10 devices will come with a direct link to connect your Android phone to your Windows 10 device. It includes a quick button on the notification center that lets you quickly connect to Microsoft’s Your Phone experience on Windows 10.
• Your Phone Screen: Microsoft will launch a new Phone screen feature for the Your Phone app on Windows 10 first for Galaxy Note 10 users later this month. The new feature will allow Galaxy Note 10 users to access their phone screen and interact with it using a keyboard, mouse, or touch screen.
• Phone Calls: Your Phone will soon allow you to make and receive calls from your Android on your Windows 10 device. You will even be able to send calls to voicemail right from your PC, though it’s not clear if this feature is going to be exclusive to Samsung devices.
• OneDrive: Samsung Gallery app will have built-in integration for OneDrive, allowing users to sync their photos with OneDrive easily. The feature will be available this fall, with the Note 10 being the first device to get the new integration, followed by other Galaxy devices.
• Outlook and Office:
  • Microsoft is making an optimised version of Outlook for the Note 10, with built-in integration for Samsung’s next-gen S Pen that allows you to interact with emails simply by hovering over them like a magic wand. You can hover over a contact in an email to get more details about them with the S Pen, for example.
  • Outlook for Android is also getting an improved tablet experience that will make it work better with Samsung DeX.
  • A new Outlook app is coming to Galaxy wearables.
  • Note 10 will continue to come with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps pre-installed as before.
• Galaxy Book S: Samsung’s new Galaxy Book S is a Windows 10 device powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8cx compute platform, and is the latest device to be part of Microsoft’s always-on, always-connected PCs effort.
• Microsoft Store: For the first time ever, Microsoft will allow you to pre-order the Note 10 and sell the new Note 10 devices across all its stores, online and in-person. You will even be able to get some trade-in offers for the new phone.

The expanded partnership between Samsung and Microsoft is a big deal. “Today is an important step for both Microsoft and Samsung, and it’s just the beginning of our investment together. We can’t wait to share more with you over the coming months and years as we invest together to empower individuals and organizations to achieve more,” said Shilpa Ranganathan, Microsoft’s CVP for Mobile & Cross-Device Experiences.

Both the companies seem very interested in making the cross-device experience work better for Samsung and Windows 10 users, so this is perfect if you own a Samsung device and a Windows 10 PC. Microsoft’s already invested a lot in making the cross-device experience between Android and Windows 10 work much better over the last year or so, and this newly expanded partnership will let Microsoft get much closer to the Android user by integrating its features directly into the phone itself, instead of requiring to manually download the Your Phone app.

Tagged with Android, Galaxy, Microsoft, Samsung, Windows 10, Your Phone