With an upcoming Windows 10 update, Microsoft will add the ability to mirror smartphone notifications from Windows 10 Mobile and Android devices on your desktop. Users won’t just be able to see notifications as they come in, but dismiss them, too.
Microsoft announced notification mirroring during its BUILD conference, and you can watch the demonstration below. Initially, the service will work through Microsoft’s Cortana app — but later on, it will worth “through the OS,” according to Windows Central.
With mirroring, Windows 10 users will see notifications from their smartphone on their desktop as they come in. They can then determine whether or not the notification requires their attention or whether they can ignore it without having to pull their smartphone out of their pocket.
Users will also have the ability to dismiss notifications universally. Doing so will remove the notification from their desktop and their smartphone at the same time. Later on, we hope to see more options, like the ability to reply to messages and archive emails.
It should be noted that developers will have to enable the dismiss feature in their apps. It’s only one line of code, so we expect many to adopt this feature, but it won’t work automatically like notification mirroring, unfortunately.
And for those who use an iPhone, “Microsoft is looking into ways of implementing these features,” reports MSPowerUser. “However, as the platform isn’t as opened as Android, the company isn’t able to integrate these features at the moment.”
Microsoft didn’t say when notification mirroring and universal dismiss would be available; there’s a chance it will be baked into its big Windows 10 Anniversary Update, but the company made no promises, so we’ll have to wait for further information.