Last year, Apple surprised users by unveiling some interesting features in MacOS Ventura. One of the upgrades was to link the iPhone to the Mac, allowing the iPhone to be used as a webcam. At the time, Android seemed unwilling to compete, but this may change.

Microsoft Phone Link is a tool that links an Android phone to a laptop. It works through Microsoft's companion app and allows a PC to control the phone remotely. What Apple had done before, and what this tool did not do, was make the phone's camera work as a webcam. However, a line of code in the update indicates that this could change.

A line of code indicates that the latest update coming for Windows, v1.23102.190.0, will allow Android phones to run video streams. The code does not specifically mention using the phone as a webcam, but other code suggests this possibility. It is suggested that users can apply effects to the video stream as well as "autoframing". [Currently, we only have information from the code and no official announcement from Android yet. Therefore, we do not know which apps will be supported by Camera Link. We can speculate that the more popular video calling apps will be supported. Alternatively, Microsoft Phone Link may allow users to choose which camera to use while the phones are linked.

Therefore, some speculate that this feature may be restricted to certain devices that have Windows Link as a system app. For example, most phones running Andoird 14 have this app in their system software, including the OnePlus 11. It is also possible that Microsoft is aiming to lock this feature into certain new releases in order to drive sales. For example, the Samsung Galaxy S24 series or the upcoming OnePlus 12 may be the only phones that can use the phone as a webcam.

Currently, Microsoft is silent on the possibility of this feature being included, so we will have to wait and see.