Windows 10’s Your Phone gets next-gen text messages with the Samsung Galaxy S20

(Image credit: Future)

The Your Phone app in Windows 10 is one of the operating system’s best features, allowing you to connect your PC up to your smartphone – and a now a new update makes it even better for anyone who owns a Samsung Galaxy S20 handset.

This is because Your Phone now supports RCS (Rich Communication Services), which is technology aimed at replacing SMS messages, and brings greater interactivity and media support for the messages you sent.

According to Roberto Bojorquez, a Microsoft employee, the company behind Windows 10 has partnered with Samsung to bring RCS message support to the Your Phone app with Galaxy 20 series handsets – though you’ll need to use Samsung Messages as your default message app on the phone.

Proud to announce that we have partnered with the Samsung Messages team to bring RCS messaging support to #yourphone app via #linktowindows. Starting with the #galaxys20series you will be able to send and receive RCS texts from PC if your default SMS app is Samsung Messages!February 15, 2020

Microsoft and Samsung collaboration

While the Your Phone app works with most Android devices, this isn’t the first time Microsoft and Samsung have worked together to add additional features to Your Phone for Samsung handsets.

Samsung devices have in the past had access to exclusive Your Phone features, like screen mirroring, thanks to the Link to Windows tool. While Microsoft has promised that Link to Windows will eventually come to non-Samsung handsets, it appears that the two companies are continuing to bring exclusive features to Samsung smartphones (and only the newest and most expensive models).

While we love the Your Phone app, and are always pleased to see new features like RCS being added, we’re not too keen on having some features only work with certain handsets from certain manufacturers. This has the danger of fragmenting the Your Phone user base into haves and have-nots.

Hopefully this feature, and Link to Windows in general, will come to more smartphones soon.

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Matt is TechRadar's Managing Editor for Core Tech, looking after computing and mobile technology. Having written for a number of publications such as PC Plus, PC Format, T3 and Linux Format, there's no aspect of technology that Matt isn't passionate about, especially computing and PC gaming. He’s personally reviewed and used most of the laptops in our best laptops guide - and since joining TechRadar in 2014, he's reviewed over 250 laptops and computing accessories personally.