Apple's iCloud Photos Comes to Windows 11, Apple Music Lands on Xbox
Apple adds to the services that work with Microsoft-powered devices.
This is what iCloud Photos will look like on Windows 11 when released.
Apple and Microsoft deepened the ties between their technologies Wednesday, announcing that the company's iCloud Photos syncing service will work on Windows PCs, and the Apple Music service will work on Xbox video game consoles.
The new moves mark an expansion of the companies' agreements, which have already brought Apple services like Apple TV videos to the Xbox, as well as contacts and calendar syncing with Windows. By further bridging the Windows and iCloud worlds, Apple is able to promote itself as working closely with the software that powers a majority of the world's PCs. Microsoft, meanwhile, can maintain that it offers products of its own that work widely with other products across the tech industry.
Apple's expanded iCloud will work with Microsoft's updated Photos app, which is in testing, while the Apple Music app for Xbox was released earlier Wednesday.
"For the last few years Windows customers who have Android phones have experienced that promise with integration across messaging, calling and photos directly to their Windows PC, bringing the two most important devices in their lives closer together," Microsoft said Wednesday. "We're making it easier than ever for customers to access their iPhone photos and the entertainment they love from Apple on their Xbox and Windows devices."
Microsoft made the announcements amid a larger event where it announced a new Surface Laptop 5 with 12th-gen Intel chips, the Surface Pro 9 with new colors and optional 5G connections, and an updated Surface Studio 2 all-in-one desktop.
The company also announced a new app called Microsoft Designer, which allows Microsoft 365 service subscribers to use artificial intelligence to create unique images based on prompts they input into the computer. The new feature uses the same AI technology in DALL-E 2, whose images have gone viral on the web since its initial release earlier this year.