14 DAY TRIAL // Continuum, the feature that allows a Windows 10 Mobile device to become a full PC when connected to an external display, is one of the key features of new phones launched by Microsoft, so it’s no wonder that the company’s pushing so hard for people to give it a try.
In a new blog post, the software giant reveals that plans to develop Continuum were first mentioned three years ago, but bringing it to the market was a longer journey than many people expected.
“The road to Continuum began three years ago with a simple observation: we take our phones everywhere, we depend on them, and we feel lost without them. Yet, when the time comes to do ‘real work,’ we reach for a laptop or desktop PC. So we end up carrying our phones plus our laptops, or we wait until we are at our desks to do the heavy lifting,” it says.
Studies “from Chicago to Shanghai”
The company conducted a series of studies across the world to determine whether Continuum would make sense on a phone, and the answers it received proved that this could actually become one of the key features of today’s mobile devices.
Most people described their phones as “my most important device” while many wanted them to connect to bigger screens and do more than simply running apps on their small screens. And because many don’t even have a PC, their phones turned into the main devices, so this was the moment when the company understood that the opportunity for changing the mobile world was huge.
Continuum is now available to users of Windows 10 Mobile who purchased a new Lumia, but what’s more exciting is that Microsoft is already working on some pretty exciting features for future updates.
Word has it that Continuum could soon receive Win32 app support, which means that you might be able to run your desktop software on the phone connected to an external screen. That’ll be the moment when the phone truly becomes a portable PC.
According to people close to the matter, such functionality could arrive with the debut of the Redstone update in the summer of 2016.