Microsoft is trying to expand the connection of smartphones to Android phones thanks to a new optical character Recognition (OCR) feature that will come to phone Links in the near future. Basically, this new feature will allow you to select text from photos synced from Android phones to Windows PCs. For phone link users, this can be a significant upgrade, and if not, it could convince you to try the feature on startup.

However, most recent Android phones (and Apple devices) have OCR, so if you want to extract text from photos, you can sync your photos with your PC.In fact, The Verge tests showed that the phone's built-in OCR was actually better than Windows's OCR.

This feature is currently in beta, so it may be improved when launched to all Windows and Android users. For now, the release Preview is part of an insider build that gives everyone a shot at the new OCR phone link feature and the biggest convenience I can see how it works for them is the ability to select text using the mouse and keyboard instead of the touch screen. 

If you're not familiar with phone links, it's a feature that lets you sync calls, messages, notifications, and images from your Android phone to your Windows PC. You can even mirror your phone screen to your PC. However, IOS users HAVE LIMITED ACCESS to this feature because THEY can ONLY SYNC NOTIFICATIONS, messages, AND PHONE-to-Pc calls. As mentioned earlier, the OCR feature is only on Android, so iPhone users will miss the advantage of another phone link.

Of course, iPhone users have access to a lot of sync features between macOS and iPhone, so Android users don't have it, so in the end it's all balanced.

Microsoft has not said when the OCR phone link feature will officially roll out to all Windows users, but if it is a release preview part of the Windows Insider process, it will be close.