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Meet the new Microsoft Phone, powered by Android (No Windows required)

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This story was originally published in March 2016. It has been extensively updated multiple times to reflect changes in Microsoft’s lineup of Android apps. This revision was published October 23, 2018.

Your Phone Companion

As the name suggests, this app is designed to link an Android phone to a PC running Windows 10, where you can send and receive text messages and get direct access to your most recent photos. (For more on the Windows 10 Your Phone app and other features in Windows 10 version 1809, see “Windows 10 October 2018 Update: The new features that matter most.”)

The companion app at this point feels a bit raw and unfinished, especially if you find yourself needing to connect multiple devices. Once configured, though, it works as advertised.

Your Phone Companion in Google Play Store

Microsoft Edge

Microsoft Edge is available as an alternative browser on Android and iOS smartphones (and recently released as a beta for iPad). If you’re among the small but loyal clan of Edge users, its ability to sync bookmarks and passwords will be welcome. It’s also the only way, for now, to see your cross-device browsing activity in the Windows 10 Timeline. (Microsoft plans to release extensions for Chrome and Firefox that will make activity from those browsers part of the Microsoft Graph and obviate the need to use Edge.)

Microsoft Edge in Google Play Store

OneDrive

Ironically, the iOS and Android apps beat their Windows counterparts to the punch with a key feature. You can connect the OneDrive apps to personal and business accounts, then switch between those files as easily as you would switch between accounts in an email app.

When this app debuted it was downright crude. Today, on a large enough mobile display, it’s extremely capable and easy to navigate. You can browse files, photos, and SharePoint sites and view details about a file or folder with a tap. An easily accessible toolbar button lets you quickly mark a file or folder to be always available offline.

The photo sharing features of OneDrive make it easy to share screenshots from a phone to a PC with only a few taps, a feature I took advantage of in creating this article. For Office 365 subscribers, the ability to review and edit shared files will probably be the most crucial.

Microsoft OneDrive in Google Play Store

Office: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and much more

Three short years ago, getting any serious work done with Office documents on an Android smartphone was difficult, because only the weak Office Mobile app was available. Today, there are full-strength Office apps, available for the platform, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote. (Skype for Business is also available for business subscribers, as is the more recent Microsoft Teams.)

You probably wouldn’t want to create a doctoral dissertation in one of these apps, but for reading and light editing they’re extremely effective. And just as with the desktop Office apps on Windows and OS X, the consistent interface makes it easy to switch between apps while remaining productive.

Outlook ranks as the most improved member of the Office app family. It connects to Office 365 Exchange Online accounts, free Outlook.com accounts, and Gmail accounts; the navigation bar at the bottom of the app makes it easy to switch between email, calendar, and contact tabs.

The swipe actions are customizable, and the Focused Inbox feature is uncannily accurate at sorting important mail from stuff I don’t really care about. My only complaint is that there’s no fine-grained control over sync intervals.

The most disappointing member of the app family is Microsoft To-Do, which offers acceptable functionality but hasn’t yet fulfilled its promise to incorporate the functionality of Wunderlist, which Microsoft bought three years ago.

Enterprise Office 365 subscribers will want to look carefully at Microsoft Teams and Microsoft StaffHub, both of which are useful additions but still evolving.

But the real sleeper of Office on a smartphone is the Office Lens app, which lets you treat your smartphone camera as if it were a scanner. It’s optimized to capture content from whiteboards, printed documents, business cards, and ordinary photos and save it in any of a half-dozen formats.

Google Play Store listings:

Microsoft WordMicrosoft ExcelMicrosoft PowerPointMicrosoft OutlookMicrosoft OneNoteSkype for Business for AndroidMicrosoft TeamsMicrosoft Office LensMicrosoft To-Do

Utilities

Microsoft’s lineup of Android apps includes a surprising number of utilities designed to make the Android experience better.

The most prominent addition to that launcher is Cortana, which is also available as a standalone app. After three years of evolution it’s become very useful indeed and is a worthy replacement if you’re concerned that saying “OK Google” is turning over too much information to Google’s machine. Microsoft Translator is useful enough if you need to quickly ask directions while visiting in a strange land.

And someone at Microsoft loves alternative keyboards. Microsoft has a special keyboard for use with Excel, and another called the Hub keyboard, which adds an Office 365 search bar to the top of the input panel. But the big kahuna is SwiftKey, acquired two years ago and recently updated to include a host of useful features. As far as I am concerned, this is the premier alternative keyboard for both Android and iOS.

If you’re a sysadmin running Microsoft Intune or supporting Dynamics CRM, you’ll find a half-dozen Android apps for each of those products. There’s also a serviceable Office 365 Admin tool that could stand some beefing up.

One app that has a place of honor on my home screen is Microsoft Authenticator, which supports two-factor authentication for Microsoft Accounts, Azure Active Directory, Office 365, and third-party apps. Even if you prefer a different 2FA app, such as Google Authenticator, this one is worth having for its one-tap approvals for Microsoft services.

Google Play Store listings:

SwiftKey KeyboardMicrosoft AuthenticatorMicrosoft TranslatorMicrosoft Cortana

OK, Android users, which of your favorite apps did I miss? Leave your comments and nominations in the comments below.

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