In a bid to keep its relevance in the mobile platform, Microsoft is releasing a beta version of its flagship browser to Android and iOS devices. Like Apple's Safari browser, Edge has been exclusive to Microsoft devices — but not anymore.
Microsoft Edge Comes To Android And iOS
It makes sense. If Microsoft can't win the smartphone landscape with its own proprietary mobile operating system, which is all but dead, it can at least attempt to improve two of the biggest operating systems with its Windows apps.
Part of the appeal of the new Microsoft Edge mobile browser is its feature called "Continue on PC," which lets Android and iOS users push webpages from mobile to desktop and continue where they left off. Beyond that, it also includes the usual suspects: access to favorites, history, reading list, and even ebooks. The Verge reports that it feels a little like using Edge on a desktop, although some features are still missing.
For starters, there's no tab syncing, or the ability to have open tabs on PC be mirrored to mobile — and vice versa. Microsoft says it's still working on that feature and hopes to bring it sometime going forward.
There's also no support yet for Cortana, the company's digital voice assistant. Even if Google Assistant and Siri are available and arguably much more useful, it still would've been great to have Cortana integrated into the Edge mobile experience. Maybe it'll be added going forward, like tab syncing.
Edge mobile supports other search engines besides Bing, which will definitely please a lot of people. Users can set either Google or Yahoo as their default search engines and never have to deal with Bing ever.
Edge mobile is available now via Apple's TestFlight program, in addition to Google's Play Store Early Access. Others can visit the site and sign up to get access to the browser, but they'll need to have the latest Windows 10 build installed. Edge mobile steps out of beta and becomes available to all users by the end of the year.
Microsoft Arrow Launcher Renamed To Just 'Microsoft Launcher'
Microsoft has also rebranded its Arrow Launcher for Android to simply as "Microsoft Launcher," and it's rolling out alongside the beta version of Edge mobile. It's built on the company's new Fluent design language and it also offers a slew of customization options. It's still in preview so there are definitely some kinks to be ironed out, but it's looking decent so far.
Like Edge, the launcher also supports Continue on PC, which Microsoft claims will "make it easy for you to seamlessly continue what you're working on — whether it's photos, documents and more — on your PC."
