One UI 6.1.1 makes streaming apps to your Home windows PC much less annoying

In case you have an Android cellphone and a Home windows PC, then among the best issues you are able to do to make them work higher collectively is to put in Hyperlink to Home windows in your cellphone. By putting in Hyperlink to Home windows in your Android cellphone, you’ll be able to entry quite a lot of its features by the Home windows Cellphone Hyperlink app in your PC, together with seeing and sending textual content messages, making cellphone calls, controlling music playback, and extra. Some options in Cellphone Hyperlink, equivalent to app streaming, are solely accessible if Hyperlink to Home windows is preinstalled in your Android cellphone, although. Hyperlink to Home windows is preinstalled on Galaxy telephones working Samsung’s One UI software program, for instance, however after the One UI 6.0 replace, streaming apps from Galaxy telephones to Home windows PCs grew to become type of annoying. Fortuitously, that is now not the case because of a change in One UI 6.1.1.

After the Android 14 replace rolled out to customers with Android telephones that supported app streaming by way of Hyperlink to Home windows, individuals rapidly found that the replace made streaming apps way more annoying.

The issue that many individuals have been now dealing with was that, following the Android 14 replace, they needed to faucet the “begin now” button each single time they needed to reflect their cellphone’s display or an app. Earlier than the Android 14 replace, you solely needed to faucet the “begin now” button as soon as per boot. This transformation primarily compelled you to succeed in over in your cellphone each single time you needed to stream a unique app to your PC.

The rationale this occurred was as a result of Android 14 closed a loophole that apps like Hyperlink to Home windows have been utilizing that allowed them to bypass asking the consumer for consent each time they needed to stream an app.

To be extra exact, the API that Hyperlink to Home windows was utilizing all this time—MediaProjection—was by no means meant for use for streaming apps. As an alternative, it’s designed for recording or casting the gadget’s display, not controlling it. Letting any app report the display may very well be harmful, which is why each time an app needs to start out a display recording session by way of the MediaProjection API, the system asks the consumer to grant the app permission. That is the place that dialog with the “begin now” button is available in.

Earlier than Android 14, although, apps have been in a position to bypass the MediaProjection consent dialog by reusing the identical intent returned beforehand after they invoked the API. This successfully meant they solely needed to ask for permission as soon as per boot. Google noticed this as a safety concern and thus closed this loophole in Android 14, although, that means apps now need to get consent from the consumer each time they need to use the MediaProjection API to report or forged the display. The result’s higher safety for all customers but in addition a extra annoying app streaming expertise.

In the event you use the Chrome OS Cellphone Hub characteristic to stream apps out of your Android cellphone to your Chromebook, although, then you definitely weren’t affected by this transformation in Android 14. That’s as a result of the Cross-Machine Companies app on Android telephones makes use of the working system’s Companion App Streaming APIs, a set of APIs Google launched in Android 13 that have been designed for app streaming. Once you attempt to launch an app out of your cellphone on a Chromebook, Cross-Machine Companies creates a digital show, launches the app onto that show, after which streams a video of that show to the Chromebook. Chrome OS then relays inputs and different knowledge again to the digital show.

With the discharge of One UI 6.1.1, which is at the moment solely accessible on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6, plainly Microsoft has migrated its Hyperlink to Home windows Service over to Android’s purpose-built implementation. Consequently, I now not need to faucet a button each single time I need to stream an app from my Galaxy Z Fold 6 to my Home windows PC. My cellphone nonetheless needs to be unlocked with a view to stream an app, however that’s an intentional and comprehensible limitation that Microsoft put in for safety causes.

Left: Demonstrating that Hyperlink to Home windows on the Galaxy Z Fold 6 now makes use of the identical digital show app streaming technique as Google’s Cellphone Hub.

Proper: Demonstrating that the Hyperlink to Home windows Service app has been granted the identical “App Streaming” function that Cross-Machine Companies is granted on Pixel telephones.

The Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6 are the primary gadgets I’ve seen to incorporate this up to date Hyperlink to Home windows implementation. Different corporations like ASUS included a modification that enables for granting Hyperlink to Home windows consent to report the display till the following reboot, however that’s clearly not a superb long-term answer because it explicitly bypasses the safety restriction that Google deliberately put into Android 14. By migrating over to Android’s purpose-built implementation, Hyperlink to Home windows will be capable of make the most of any of the longer term options that Google could add to enhance Android’s app streaming expertise.