Windows 10 will soon get one of Windows 7’s coolest features
The ability to stream music from your phone to your PC’s speakers
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Windows 10May 2020 Update will give back users the ability to pipe music through from their phone to their PC via Bluetooth.
In other words, you’ll be able to hook up a mobile device to the PC wirelessly with Bluetooth, and then stream music from that device to play on your desktop computer’s speakers – an ability which was present inWindows 7, as some folks may recall.
However, the functionality – known as Bluetooth A2DP sink (yes, ‘sink’, not sync) – was left behind whenWindows 8emerged, andMicrosoftdidn’t reintroduce it withWindows 10.
The existing implementation of this feature on Windows 10 allows for the A2DP ‘source’ role – meaning you can send audio from a Windows 10 PC to a portable device – but not the ‘sink’ role (the ability to receive audio from the mobile device via Bluetooth).
Until now, that is, because fortunately this is about to change, as Microsoft is reportedly bringing back the sink feature with the imminent May 2020 Update.
This is according to a support document penned by Microsoft which was uncovered byWindows Latest. Microsoftnotes: “Starting with Windows 10, version 2004 [May 2020 Update] remote audio sources can stream audio to Windows devices, enabling scenarios such as configuring a PC to behave like a Bluetooth speaker and allowing users to hear audio from their phone.”
App settings
You’ll be able to listen to music from your phone on your PC speakers, or indeed headphones, and Microsoft clarifies that the Bluetooth A2DP sink function will be managed on a per-app basis rather than via system settings.
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Windows 10 May 2020 Update isexpected to arrive in late May, most likely onMay 28 or maybe a couple of days beforehand, and it comesladen with changesincluding some big moves with Cortana, a Cloud Download feature which makes resetting the OS back to its default configuration an easier process, and much more.
Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - ‘I Know What You Did Last Supper’ - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).
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