
Cortana available on iOS and Android - dalanmiller
https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2015/12/09/cortana-now-available-here-and-when-you-need-her-no-matter-what-smartphone-you-choose/
======
probably_wrong
I want to like Cortana, I really do. Unfortunately, it's linked to my phone's
default language. So even though I _could_ speak English, Cortana will not
talk to me because my phone's interface is in Spanish.

That is something I can understand - maybe there are development reasons why
second language voice recognition is not possible. However, every time I
update my OS, Cortana is added to my main screen again, perhaps to remind me
of the wonderful times we could have together if only I changed my phone's
main language.

It shouldn't be too hard to add an extra "if" somewhere in the installation
process, right?

~~~
danpeddle
Sigh, that's sad.

It baffles me that there are still so many services that try to
'automagically' intuit which language someone wants to have a service in,
instead of just simply .. asking.

Google play is a prime culprit, for example, showing a mixture of language
content on the play store. See also subtitles, dubbed content, books..

Another one - Sony's Playstation store, where if you choose a country, then
the language (despite them having the assets available through their
international presence) is permanently set and impossible to change.

~~~
dave5104
I don't think there's a problem with automagically inferring the language. It
sounds like the problem lies in not being able to override that decision.

~~~
lovemenot
The route to revert language must be clear though, even when the UI is in a
foreign language.

This can be trickier than it sounds. For instance, selecting English from a
Japanese UI should be "English" not 英語. Conversely, from English to select
Japanese has to be 日本語 not "Japanese".

------
untog
Can anyone that has used Cortana say how it compares to Google Now? The Google
Play preview screenshots show a lot of great stuff - flight tracking and so on
- that Google Now already has. I'm not wedded to Google by any means (in fact,
I like the idea of diversifying the services I use) but I'm not seeing huge
pluses to Cortana yet.

Irrespective, Microsoft has really been impressive lately. If I were in the
market for a new laptop I would be strongly considering a Surface Book - I
imagine Cortana on my phone would be a great addition if I had one.

~~~
_wmd
I've owned a Windows Phone for a year, only got around to trying Cortana on
Sunday evening entirely by accident. It worked flawlessly for adding 2
calendar entries, at which point I was impressed enough to try and engage it
in conversation, which (thankfully) failed. All the more impressive as I was a
case of beer in, slurring my words, and speaking in a thick local accent that
would confuse any Englishman.

Definitely a convenient feature, though I don't know if it has all the
knowledge search stuff Siri has, or any of the random pointless gimmicks that
iPhone users seem to mainly coo over.

~~~
sp332
It does have a huge collection of bad jokes, which is a draw to silly people
like me! You can even ask it for categories like "tell me a science joke".

~~~
Spearchucker
Cortana does have a sense of humour. Try asking her what she's wearing. Her
answer, while still funny, will not land you an HR violation.

------
geoffpado
Since I couldn't find the iOS link anywhere (even on their main Cortana page),
here it is for everyone else:
[https://appsto.re/us/hTM2-.i](https://appsto.re/us/hTM2-.i)

~~~
reggplant
It is currently only available in the US and China as far as I can see (UK
here).

~~~
garyrichardson
Also not available in Canada. Boo-urns.

~~~
Pxtl
They just launched Cortana in Canada like last week.

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KirinDave
I've been using Cortana a lot because of my Surface Book being my primary dev
laptop.

I like it. In particular its recording, geofencing, and exposure of reminders
is just MUCH more reliable than Google Now, which was previously my go-to for
such tasks.

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dharma1
do Siri, OK Google or Cortana offer any API's for 3rd party apps? So that I
could do things like get X app to do Y with voice commands?

Either when I've got the app open/focused, or even when the app isn't running?

~~~
Grazester
Of course Google now has an api that can be used for issuing voice commands
for third party apps

~~~
dharma1
No support for voice actions on Android TV it seems, shame.

Bought an Nvidia Shield TV recently and while voice search is really good, it
would be awesome to have wider voice control.

------
edgyswingset
Just tried it out on my Nexus 6. Scrolling the "home" list feels sluggish to
me, as does the "Notebook" feature. Is this written in something like Cordova?
I certainly hope not.

~~~
KirinDave
MS pushes hard on Xamarin. But yeah that scrolling is hell of chunky.

------
geuis
Giving this a shot because I've always liked Windows Phone as a different
experience from iOS and Android. I'm on a 5s with iOS 9.

Maybe the cortana servers are over loaded, but none of my questions are even
being registered. All that happens is the app just keeps showing recommended
news articles.

Finally got it to recognize a weather question. But I have headphones plugged
in and _somehow_ the app plays through the iPhone speakers instead of my
headphones. I didn't even think that was possible.

Even speaking loudly and succinctly, the voice recognition only catches parts
of a sentence or starts searching after only getting a single word like "what"
or "who".

Gonna pass on this for now.

------
LargeCompanies
It's on-boarding process needs to consist of entering an email
address/password for account creation only and or a social sign in option.

After going through a frustrating sign up with many screens and processes I
was able to use Cortana. There I realized if it's not built into the phone
it's going to be hard to delight users and or compete with each devices' built
in assistant. I use Siri daily and she is useful when driving to control what
Apple Music plays and other quick requests/actions.

I'm looking forward to trying Facebook's assistant .. hopefully it gives Siri
a run for it's money and more!

~~~
kylequest
You shouldn't even need an account... unless you want to enable advanced
features. Access to your location and maybe your address book should be
enough. I deleted Cortana on my phone as soon as it asked me to login with a
Microsoft account :-)

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giancarlostoro
I'm really excited about this, because it gives us another option that isn't
constrained by specific platforms. I know there are complaints left and right,
but we have to bear in mind it's only just been released, Microsoft is
competent enough to fix the warts. Hopefully they're quickly responsive during
these crucial moments of the apps release. I'm going to install Cortana and
leave it on my phone even if I have to avoid using "her" for a little while.
Though I hope that's not the case.

------
bst287
Is there any clear benefit to using Cortana over Siri?

~~~
jinst8gmi
Not having to buy an Apple device which is unaffordable for many...

~~~
falcolas
In that case, is there a clear benefit to Cortana over Google Now?

~~~
sremani
If you are a windows 10 user and use cortana on desktop, and xbox one user
which is likely to get cortana, you will have one personal assistant across
all your devices. Is it a clear benefit, it entirely depends on your use case.
As Windows 10 notebook owner, even though I mostly use Cortana on my phone,
she/it has enough context when I use her on my notebook.

~~~
vocatus_gate
Problem is Microsoft will likely abandon Cortana before very long, like
they've done with SO many of their products.

Plays4Sure, the original Surface, Silverlight, I could go on. MS has no
stomach for long-term commitment to their non-core products, and as such I'm
always counting down the days till their latest innovation/copyvation gets the
ax.

~~~
acheron
I don't think "abandoned products" is something you want to bring up in favor
of Google.

~~~
scholia
A hit, a palpable hit ;-)

------
MitchellKnight
I purchased Nokia with Windows Phone 7 expecting the same kind of OS updates
that I got as an Apple user. My iPad 2 (from 2011) is on the latest iOS
version. Instead Microsoft abandoned Windows Phone 7 users. It's mildly
annoying that I can get Cortana on my iPad now but not my Windows Phone
device.

------
ajp
Anyone know if it's possible to install this or the Arrow launcher without
installing Google Play Services?

~~~
ocdtrekkie
apkmirror.com may be able to help you there. It's a pretty reputable source,
and isn't run by shady people.

~~~
ajp
Neat. Thanks.

------
herbig
The Android app is really choppy and slow, I couldn't get the voice search to
work, and uses Android design themes/elements from four years ago.

I also had to create a Microsoft account in order to check it out for the 5
minutes I did so before it was summarily uninstalled.

------
melling
No way to say "hey Cortana" even if the app is open? Personally, I'm looking
for an app where I can say "take a note" then spend the next 15 minutes saying
my notes into my device with having to touch the screen.

~~~
asyncwords
The Android version can use "Hey Cortana"; it's under Settings. No idea about
the iOS version, though.

------
Raed667
Cyanogen integration? Will this mean default Cortana install on Chinese
phones?

------
dackbuut
Does this mean I can use cortana from my band via my android phone?

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chris-at
It won't let my peek without asking to create an account :(

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Zekio
still not available in a ton of countries in EU like denmark

~~~
sremani
The problem with EU is high customization per capita, given the diversity.

~~~
izacus
That doesn't mean that english functions have to be disabled. Google Now and
Siri work just fine across EU. Cortana is deliberately disabled.

------
mderazon
Why are both Cortana and Siri considered females ?

~~~
ehaughee
The name Siri came from the original company's name which, in turn, came from
the founder's desire to name his daughter after a female Norwegian coworker of
the same name [1]. Cortana is a female AI character from the Halo series. Of
course in neither case does that mean they had to keep the gender the same for
those reasons but it would appear the simplest explanation.

[1] [http://theweek.com/articles/476851/how-apples-siri-got-
name](http://theweek.com/articles/476851/how-apples-siri-got-name)

------
CosmicShadow
Wish it worked on my BlackBerry!

------
mikeash
Looks nice. Too bad I can't try it out without signing in.

------
fweespeech
How about you let me strip it completely out of Windows 10 instead of just
turning/disabling it mostly off?

~~~
KirinDave
You can disable all its callback features. All that's left is the interface to
windows search. 9)% of what Cortana is is just a new cross-entity search
framework for your stuff. But you can turn it all off by unpairing it (or just
using an local Win10 Account).

Or you can keep squatting on Windows 7 until it EOLs and use a desktop OS that
manages to be even more dated than Mac OS X.

~~~
fweespeech
> You can disable all its callback features.

The fact I have to write a host file to do that makes it rather irritating
but, yes, with a local account and the appropriate host file and all the
features turned off it sorta-works.

The concern is Windows Update will turn it back on as it has with other things
in the past.

~~~
KirinDave
Which OS do you use? OSX does the as-you-type requests too. Last time I looked
wasn't Ubuntu doing it as well?

~~~
fweespeech
I primarily use Debian, I use Windows for gaming.

And Ubuntu actually lets you shut it off relatively easily fyi.

~~~
KirinDave
If only Ubuntu could make it easier to run package updates 6 months
continuously.

------
guelo
Went to install it on Android until I saw the list of permissions:

    
    
      - Device & app history
      - Identity
      - Calendar
      - Contacts
      - Location
      - SMS
      - Phone
      - Photos/Media/Files
      - Microphone
      - WiFi connection information
      - Bluetooth connection information
      - Device ID & call information
    

Wow!

~~~
jonknee
How else do you expect your virtual assistant to assist?

