Welcome to the drone club, Windows users! Quadrocopter maker partners with Microsoft

By Andrew Couts Published November 21, 2013

Good news, Windows users! Popular drone maker Parrot has partnered with Microsoft to allow you to control the UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) Parrot AR Drone 2.0 quadrocopter with your Windows machine. The new versions of Parrot’s control software include both the Parrot AR FreeFlight app, as well as Parrot’s Audio Suite app, which lets you control the Parrot Zik headphones using a Windows Phone 8 device.

While Audio Suite is available now, the FreeFlight app for Windows 8 won’t arrive until “early December,” according to Parrot. So don’t fire up your Surface tablet just yet. The Windows Phone 8 version of FreeFlight, which will work with applicable Nokia and HTC handsets, is expected to arrive sometime at the beginning of 2014.

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The Parrot AR.Drone quadrocopters have been compatible with iOS and Android devices for some time. The addition of Windows arrived after Parrot brought Microsoft’s outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer into the office to try out its high-tech flying robot.

“We have been working for months with Microsoft to ensure the compatibility of Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 devices with Parrot products,” said Henri Seydoux, founder and CEO of Parrot in a statement.

As we saw recently with Instagram, which released its Windows Phone app with a number of key features missing, creating apps for the Windows Phone operating system appears to be a challenge. Hopefully, Parrot AR.Drone users will get the full shebang when the FreeFlight app hits next year.

Want to learn more about getting started in the world of drones? Check out our beginners guide here.

Former Staff Writer

Features Editor for Digital Trends, Andrew Couts covers a wide swath of consumer technology topics, with particular focus on…

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