Windows 10's new Timeline feature lets you resume apps on other devices

Microsoft is introducing a new Timeline feature for Windows 10 today. It's a feature that is designed to allow Windows 10 users to switch between multiple devices, including Android and iOS phones. Microsoft has built a Timeline view straight into the existing Task View feature for Windows 10 that includes an overview of currently running apps across Windows 10 machines and iOS and Android devices.

Timeline will let you effectively pick up where you left off if you're switching between Windows 10 devices. Thanks to Cortana integration, this will even extend to some Microsoft apps on iOS and Android. It's really designed to be a quick way to move from one machine to another, much like Apple's continuity feature in iOS and macOS.

Microsoft has experimented with similar features before. You can currently resume Edge sessions across multiple Windows 10 devices, thanks to Cortana. Microsoft will also leverage Cortana with Timeline to prompt Windows 10 users to pick up sessions intelligently.

The real key is extending this to devices outside of Windows 10. Cortana is the core part of this experience on both Android and iOS. Microsoft is asking developers to register their apps in its Microsoft Graph, to allow Windows 10 users to roam content and sessions over to mobile devices. This isn't a huge amount of heavy lifting for developers, but it will require some information to link up apps and have Cortana prompt to resume sessions on phones.