14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft rolled out phone sign-in support for Microsoft Authenticator app earlier today, and this means that users can basically log into their accounts without introducing their passwords anymore.
While this is a pretty neat future that everyone with a Microsoft account should use for easier authentication, there’s one little thing that might anger many Microsoft users: this feature is not available on Windows phones, but only on Android and iOS.
Naturally, a company that owns a mobile platform should support it in the first place, and only then develop compatibility for other operating systems, but in the case of Microsoft, both Android and iOS are considered to be priorities right now, while Windows phone users are more or less left behind.
Android and iOS are the priority
As far as the new phone sign-in feature is concerned, Microsoft says that Android and iOS are getting it first simply because these are the platforms that the majority of users are running, and since only a few people are still on Windows phones, it makes sense to focus development on other platforms.
“A few people have asked if this works with Windows Phone version Microsoft Authenticator. Windows Phone makes up <5% of the active users of our Authenticator Apps so we have prioritized getting this working with iOS and Android for now. If/When it becomes a big success on those high scale platforms, we will evaluate adding support for Windows Phone,” Microsoft explains.
At this point, there is no ETA as to when Windows phones could get this new phone sign-in feature, pretty much because Microsoft says it’s still working on making it work flawlessly on iOS and Android.
Unfortunately, this is one of those many moments when Windows phones are being left behind simply because only few users have such devices. And yet, Microsoft might have gotten all of this wrong, as all Windows phone users have Microsoft accounts too.