The app uses QR codes to link with the ‘Photos’ app on Windows 10 to carry out the transfers, provided both devices are on the same Wi-Fi network. According to the company, “The biggest hurdle many classrooms faced was getting the content students had captured with their phones onto their project PCs”. Microsoft says that it has designed the app primarily with students in mind. The Photos Companion app is meant to make it easier for users to transfer all or selected photos and videos from the phone to PCs, notebooks and tablets running Windows 10. The new app is available on both Android and iOS, and can be downloaded from the App Store and the Play Store. The latest one is called ‘Photos Companion’ which Microsoft has been in testing for several months. There will be more to the story, so be sure to stay tuned in for more.The company already has an insane number of apps on the two platforms, including its popular Office suite, but it continues to add new apps to the mix on a fairly regular basis. This states that the company can now focus on other things. Since Windows Phones' support ended in July, it is no longer in the works to develop Windows 10 Mobile features. Microsoft's Photo Companion will add to its iOS offerings complimenting its wider mobile strategy. This would enable students to transfer media to their own computers … or to a shared, project PC … without worrying about network speeds or mobile data charges. Our solution was to build an app that would support direct wireless transfer between any phone or mobile device and the Photos app on any Windows 10 PC. We also knew that Wi-Fi access in the classroom was great between devices, but that any solution that required the cloud for transfer could be blocked by overloaded networks. We knew that students often captured on multiple phones or tablets, but leveraged a single 'project' PC to assemble their media and create their final project.

We began developing a simple, experimental app for iOS and Android to see if we could unblock educators and help them begin using the Photos app in their classrooms.

Microsoft expects the app to attract students who are prone to not keep a backup of their photos on a Cloud server.

Photos companion ios