Microsoft is engaged on a brand new “Cross System Resume” function for Home windows 11 that works equally to Apple’s Handoff function in macOS. The function was spotted in a Microsoft Construct 2025 session, earlier than Windows Central observed Microsoft modifying out the demo that confirmed a cell Spotify session resuming on a PC.
“Whenever you open the app in your cell machine or pill, Home windows can present a delicate badge proper in your app’s taskbar icon,” explains Aakash Varshney, a senior product supervisor for cross units and experiences at Microsoft, in a “Create Seamless Cross-System Experiences with Home windows to your app” Build session for builders. “It’s a visible nudge that when clicked launches your app straight into the duty, delivering a clean intuitive handoff from PC to telephone.”
Varshney’s now-deleted demo exhibits a Spotify app icon with a badge on it within the taskbar, and a message if you hover over the badge that claims “resume, just lately opened in your cell machine.” It’s designed to allow you to resume the Spotify app on PC proper from the place you left off on cell. “Spotify launches and I’m immediately again in the identical music, now enjoying on my PC,” says Varshney. “No want to go looking or begin over, it’s a clean one-click transition that retains the music and person expertise uninterrupted.”
Microsoft first began testing an app handoff function in Home windows 10, again in 2016. Codenamed Project Rome, the cross-device expertise for apps was designed for builders to put in writing apps that may “run on a number of units and journey with the person as they swap between units.” We’ve not seen a lot adoption of Challenge Rome in actuality although, so hopefully this new Cross System Resume is extra extensively adopted.