Alongside announcing a new build for Insiders, Microsoft today has announced that they are planning to pull support for SMS texting via the Messaging app from the Windows 10 Anniversary Update to focus on bringing a much better experience to the Skype app. This is sad news indeed, especially for Windows phone users, as it means we will no longer be able to sync text messages between PC and phone.
From Microsoft's official blog post:
We have been testing with Windows Insiders a preview of the "Messaging everywhere" feature that allows you to receive and send text messages from your Windows 10 phone directly to and from your Windows 10 PC. The experience was well-received by Insiders however we believe we can deliver an even better experience through the Skype app. Because of this, we decided not to release this feature as part of the Windows 10 Anniversary Update this summer. Starting with Build 14376 and going forward, Insiders will no longer have the ability to reply to text messages from their phone via the Messaging app on their PCs. The ability to reply to text messages on your PC using Cortana is unaffected. Going forward, we will be working with the Skype Team on delivering a great "messaging everywhere" experience on your Windows 10 devices through the Skype app. We will share more details about this experience in the months ahead.
As mentioned in the blog post, SMS from the desktop will still be possible with Cortana, however there will no longer be a dedicated Messaging client that will allow you to read and view other SMS conversations from your PC, synced via your phone. This is unfortunate, as this was a feature that allowed easy SMS texting without the need of picking up your phone.
Microsoft has originally tried to merge Skype into Messaging, but later pulled the feature in favor of a new Skype Windows Store app currently in development. That meant for the Anniversary Update SMS messages and Skype would require two different apps. Now, Microsoft is doing the reverse and evidently going to try to put SMS into Skype, which should be interesting.
The Windows 10 Anniversary Update is around a month away from official release, meaning there's just a few more weeks of development before Insiders get the final bits for testing. In that time, make sure you're downloading the latest Insider builds and providing feedback to Microsoft!
