What Microsoft has done with the HD-500 display dock is to create a 'last mile' solution for all the aforementioned tech. But the demos we've seen are promising.) The Last Mile (Windows 10 Mobile is not yet out - it's coming in December alongside the launch of the Lumia 950 and 950 XL - so we'll have to reserve some judgment on how well that will work. In other words, the technology baked into Windows 10 enables you to connect your Windows 10 Mobile smartphone to a monitor and display the phone's contents in a pretty, intuitive, familiar UI, with applications that run (more or less) just as well on your desktop as they do on your phone.

Microsoft cleared one of the final, and most formidable, hurdles - that of the UI problem - with Windows 10 by enabling Universal Apps on the new OS (that is, applications can run on any device with the same code, from desktops to mobile phones to the Xbox) and creating Continuum (which intelligently displays a device's contents to fit a larger display). Mobile hardware continues to increase in power, and innovations such as SlimPort and MHL and USB Type-C have all in one way or another helped to ameliorate the connectivity and battery issues. Things have been changing on that front, of course. There weren't good enough ways to connect and display the smartphone's contents on a larger monitor. The apps weren't sufficient substitutes for desktop software.

The mobile hardware wasn't at all powerful enough. There have always been severe limitations, though.

Microsoft display dock iphone