How it works

PhoneMyPC is a suite of two applications. One runs on your Android phone, the other on your PC(s). When you use the features of the applicaiton from your phone, the phone is communicating with the software in the PC to perform the requested actions.

Secure Reliable Communication

Using PhoneMyPC, both your phone and your PC(s) connect to our secure hosted servers via industry leading Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology. Communicating through the secure host allows the phone and the PC to communicate, even when both are protected by firewalls and other security technology. This makes PhoneMyPC ideal for corporate and other security conscious users.

Privacy

Commands from your phone, and image data from your PC passes through our servers when you use the features of PhoneMyPC. However, your private data is never inspected, processed or retained on our servers beyond what is necessary to send it to your other device.

We keep some usage statistics which we use to scale our infrastructure and to improve our services, but no statistics are associated with your account. In other words, we retain no record of your use of the applications.

Android Permissions requested by PhoneMyPC

Each Android application requests certain permissions from you when they are installed on your device. You can see these in the Android Market before you download the application.

Some of these permissions are described by the Android market in a way that makes them sound scary–and indeed, there are applications available that exist largely to mine your phone for private data. For these reasons, we believe it is prudent to explain what we do with each permission:

  • Full Internet Access.  This is used to contact our servers and your PC during remote sessions. Our software connects only to those two destinations, and no personal data is sent.
  • Access Phone State.  This permission allows us to read your phone number, device ID and Android ID, which we use as a unique identifier for product licensing. None of these values leave your device; rather, we hash them to create a unique ID that is used only in confirming that you are a licensed user.

Licensing

Although the feature is not activated yet (and thus license keys have not yet been distributed), our licensing feature is designed to protect the servers that you  have paid for so that only you (true customers) can use them. It is also designed to be simple to use. For example:

  • When you receive a license key via email, simply copy and paste it into the Settings screen in PhoneMyPC
  • Our servers receive the hashed identifier of your phone, along with the license key as proof of purchase
  • In the future, as you download updates, uninstall or reinstall the software, or even reset your phone, you do not need to locate your key again, because the device has already been authorized
  • When you purchase a new device, you can move your software purchase to it by simply entering your license key; our servers will move ownership of the software to that device

Optimized Network Use ** IMPORTANT **

Once the phone and PC begin to communicate, they share network configuration information and attempt to find a faster comunication path. For example, if the PC is accessible from the internet, PhoneMyPC will connect your phone directly to the PC over the internet, removing our host from the communication path and improving performance with a private connection. If the phone is using WIFI and it is on the same nework as the PC, PhoneMyPC will connect your phone directly to the PC over the local network for the absolute best performance and quality.

How to enable Direct-Connect

To enable direct-connect within your LAN:

Make sure your Windows Firewall allows incoming connections on TCP port 49300 (or other, as configured on the Advanced tab of the PhoneMyPC PC application) and make sure WIFI is enabled on your phone and that it can connect to your WIFI network.

To enable direct-connect from the internet:

Make sure your Windows Firewall allows connections on TCP port 49300 (or other, as configured on the Advanced tab of the PhoneMyPC PC application) and make sure your router forwards port 49300 to your PC.