One UI 6.1.1 makes streaming apps to your Windows PC less annoying

If you have an Android phone and a Windows PC, then one of the best things you can do to make them work better together is to install Link to Windows on your phone. By installing Link to Windows on your Android phone, you can access a number of its functions through the Windows Phone Link app on your PC, including seeing and sending text messages, making phone calls, controlling music playback, and more. Some features in Phone Link, such as app streaming, are only available if Link to Windows is preinstalled on your Android phone, though. Link to Windows is preinstalled on Galaxy phones running Samsung’s One UI software, for example, but after the One UI 6.0 update, streaming apps from Galaxy phones to Windows PCs became kind of annoying. Fortunately, this is no longer the case thanks to a change in One UI 6.1.1.

After the Android 14 update rolled out to users with Android phones that supported app streaming via Link to Windows, people quickly discovered that the update made streaming apps much more annoying.

The problem that many people were now facing was that, following the Android 14 update, they had to tap the “start now” button every single time they wanted to mirror their phone’s screen or an app. Before the Android 14 update, you only had to tap the “start now” button once per boot. This change essentially forced you to reach over for your phone every single time you wanted to stream a different app to your PC.

The reason this happened was because Android 14 closed a loophole that apps like Link to Windows were using that allowed them to bypass asking the user for consent every time they wanted to stream an app.

To be more precise, the API that Link to Windows was using all this time—MediaProjection—was never intended to be used for streaming apps. Instead, it’s designed for recording or casting the device’s screen, not controlling it. Letting any app record the screen could be dangerous, which is why every time an app wants to start a screen recording session via the MediaProjection API, the system asks the user to grant the app permission. This is where that dialog with the “start now” button comes in.

Before Android 14, though, apps were able to bypass the MediaProjection consent dialog by reusing the same intent returned previously when they invoked the API. This effectively meant they only had to ask for permission once per boot. Google saw this as a security issue and thus closed this loophole in Android 14, though, meaning apps now have to get consent from the user every time they want to use the MediaProjection API to record or cast the screen. The result is better security for all users but also a more annoying app streaming experience.

If you use the Chrome OS Phone Hub feature to stream apps from your Android phone to your Chromebook, though, then you weren’t affected by this change in Android 14. That’s because the Cross-Device Services app on Android phones uses the operating system’s Companion App Streaming APIs, a set of APIs Google introduced in Android 13 that were designed for app streaming. When you try to launch an app from your phone on a Chromebook, Cross-Device Services creates a virtual display, launches the app onto that display, and then streams a video of that display to the Chromebook. Chrome OS then relays inputs and other data back to the virtual display.

With the release of One UI 6.1.1, which is currently only available on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6, it seems that Microsoft has migrated its Link to Windows Service over to Android’s purpose-built implementation. As a result, I no longer have to tap a button every single time I want to stream an app from my Galaxy Z Fold 6 to my Windows PC. My phone still has to be unlocked in order to stream an app, but that’s an intentional and understandable limitation that Microsoft put in for security reasons.

Left: Demonstrating that Link to Windows on the Galaxy Z Fold 6 now uses the same virtual display app streaming method as Google’s Phone Hub.

Right: Demonstrating that the Link to Windows Service app has been granted the same “App Streaming” role that Cross-Device Services is granted on Pixel phones.

The Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6 are the first devices I’ve seen to include this updated Link to Windows implementation. Other companies like ASUS included a modification that allows for granting Link to Windows consent to record the screen until the next reboot, but that’s clearly not a good long-term solution since it explicitly bypasses the security restriction that Google intentionally put into Android 14. By migrating over to Android’s purpose-built implementation, Link to Windows will be able to utilize any of the future features that Google may add to improve Android’s app streaming experience.