>KDE connect does what the Remote Hippo app did a decade ago, from what I’m seeing of it’s documentation - let’s you use your phone as a trackpad and maybe share files and such. Yes, it’s more advanced, but it’s not a rethinking of things.
It does way more than that:
It will pause your PC music/movie when you get a call.
It lets you sync clipboards.
Syncs notifications, SMS, etc and can even reply to SMS from your PC.
Remote view of photos and files on your phone from the PC.
Take phone call on your PC.
And I might be missing a couple.
But, yes, the fact that Microsoft hasn't delivered such features on Windows is baffling. They did try with the Your Phone app, but that's worse than KDE connect.
SMS sync and taking calls from the computer have been a feature in the apple ecosystem since at least 2017.
I agree with the other commenters - it's nice, but it's not nearly the same. The beauty of it is really that 'it just works' - you don't need to know about it, you don't need to open a specific app, find something by name and press 'connect', there are no options. The behaviour just slots in perfectly between the existing model of icloud / sharing / handoff. This kind of long-term design vision is difficult to achieve and very rare in FOSS, maybe with the exception of Elementary.
It does way more than that:
It will pause your PC music/movie when you get a call.
It lets you sync clipboards.
Syncs notifications, SMS, etc and can even reply to SMS from your PC.
Remote view of photos and files on your phone from the PC.
Take phone call on your PC.
And I might be missing a couple.
But, yes, the fact that Microsoft hasn't delivered such features on Windows is baffling. They did try with the Your Phone app, but that's worse than KDE connect.