Welcome home, John - Microsoft ending cortana support for iOS and Android

[williamcll]

Microsoft has announced the end of mobile cortana support for select countries. It will however remain around for PCs.

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Come the end of January, it appears the Cortana app’s getting booted to the Microsoft assistant graveyard. At least poor Clippy will have some company now.That’s according to a support article Microsoft posted to several regional markets this week, though a spokesperson later clarified to Gizmodo that only users in the following areas can expect to say goodbye to the voice assistant: Great Britain, Australia, Germany, Mexico, China, Spain, Canada, and India. Despite dropping the app in these regions, Cortana itself remains “an integral part” of the company’s business model to incorporate “conversational computing and productivity” into its products according to the spokesperson, so Microsoft doesn’t appear to be closing the coffin on it entirely.

Microsoft’s US site currently hosts no such message and the Cortana app will remain available to stateside Android and iOS users after the listed shutdown date, January 31st.“To make your personal digital assistant as helpful as possible, we’re integrating Cortana into your Microsoft 365 productivity apps,” Microsoft’s note reads. “As part of this evolution, on January 31st, 2020, we’re ending support for the Cortana app on Android and iOS in your market.”After that date, any reminders or lists users currently have on the Cortana app can be accessed through Microsoft’s free To Do app, which is automatically synced.

 

The move comes as no surprise since Microsoft has been gradually rolling back its focus on Cortana as a standalone voice assistant. In January, CEO Satya Nadella flat out said the company no longer considers Cortana a competitor to the likes of Amazon’s Alexa or Google Assistant despite a massive attempt to rebrand the voice assistant in 2018. This time last year also saw the departure of the head of Cortana, Javier Soltero, as Microsoft integrated the voice assistant from the company’s AI and Research department into its Experiences and Devices team as more of a digital aide role.Part of what’s made this pivot possible is the company’s collaboration with another tech giant, Amazon. Microsoft welcomed its voice assistant Alexa onto its products beginning last year (and vice versa), in addition to opening its online and retail locations to Amazon products like the Echo and Echo Dot. The voice assistant has also been seeing a reduced role in Microsoft’s overall ecosystem. Earlier this year, the company announced it would be disabling Cortana’s help by default during certain installations of Windows 10. They later dropped it from the search bar entirely.

 

Man, hearing Cortana’s app is getting the ax is so sad. Alexa, go ahead: Hit it.

Source:https://gizmodo.com/farewell-cortana-1839907363

https://mspoweruser.com/microsoft-confirms-the-departure-of-cortana-from-android-ios-and-microsoft-launcher/

Thoughts: Too bad I've never used voice assistants anyway, maybe if they added a bit more personality to Cortana it might just have the kick to keep a foot on the mobile market.

[Levent]

In typical Microsoft fashion, if it's not showed down users throat it's usually a failure. This is not a surprise tbh, they have no mobile OS that they can make Cortana mandatory/ forced on for users. Heck, even in Windows I rarely see anyone using Cortana.

 

[GoodBytes]

Actually, plans to remove it on PC is already on the way. You may have noticed that Cortana is now separated from the Start Menu and Search, and is now an app apart.

 

Microsoft is reworking Cortana for business and productivity purposes. It is in Office 365 already as the AI for the feature on Office suit where you search for finding features/options you are looking for.  And present presentation layout options for PowerPoint (Yes, you can just dump your text and images, and it  render a nice looking slide with it all, I tried it, and it is pretty sick). It will be coming for transcript / closed caption generation on PowerPoint presentation live, and as a meeting room technology to life transcribe meeting with company specific jargon recognition and acronym recognition (in the works).

 

Those are currently the plans with are set in motion.

[Teddy07]

Digital assistans in Germany are generally not very welcome. I have never seen anyone use it. 

[Unixsystem]

Inb4 she declares galaxy wide martial law and commits mass genocide against trillions. 

 

Spoiler

And then a spokesperson comes out and publicly says "what do you mean she's a villain". 

 

[Nowak]

And there she goes.

[DrMacintosh]

Great! Now all they have to do is end support for Windows 10 and we’ll be making some real progress! 

[Sauron]

1 hour ago, GoodBytes said:

Actually, plans to remove it on PC is already on the way.

The best news I've heard today

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Microsoft is reworking Cortana for business and productivity purposes. It is in Office 365 already as the AI for the feature on Office suit app search for finding features/options you are looking for to do in your document, present presentation layout options for PowerPoint

So basically clippy again... sounds like an area where even fewer people will have any use for it.

[GoodBytes]

3 minutes ago, Sauron said:

The best news I've heard today

So basically clippy again... sounds like an area where even fewer people will have any use for it.

Clippy was designed for people that are very new to computers. This is designed to actually help your productivity.

[PlayStation 2]

Well that didn't take long.

[Teddy07]

23 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Great! Now all they have to do is end support for Windows 10 and we’ll be making some real progress! 

Come on, Windows 10 is their best OS. Why the hate?

[GoodBytes]

4 minutes ago, Teddy07 said:

Come on, Windows 10 is their best OS. Why the hate?

Look at his user name. 

[Sauron]

2 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

Clippy was designed for people that are very new to computers. This is designed to actually help your productivity.

But... if you know what you're doing there's no way this will be faster than keyboard shortcuts

[Dabombinable]

2 hours ago, Kaloob said:

Windows 10 bad Windows ME good /s

Not quite that reason (that's not a reference to a rain coat).

[mr moose]

I like the idea of the OS being only an os and all the other things (search, browser, calendar, etc) being optional and not tied in any way.  I know it can make security harder, but it gives users more options.   As far as moving cortana to office and off of mobile, well that makes sense, hardly anyone was installing it except those using office and outlook as their calendar any way. 

 

Also GG Ltt, assume the only reason MS do anything is because they force it on you.  There are lots of things MS can force on you but don't because they are counter productive.

[Xiee]

4 hours ago, Teddy07 said:

Digital assistans in Germany are generally not very welcome. I have never seen anyone use it. 

Same for us here in Southeast Asia.

[TrigrH]

Just intime for the halo pc launch

[Murasaki]

Good, never used that thing.

[TetraSky]

Cortana was a flop from day one even on PC.

Who genuinely uses it and actually like it? I seriously want to know.

Because it literally NEVER WORKS. It can't even do its job as a search tool for Windows properly, much less do anything else of value.

[TechyBen]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

I like the idea of the OS being only an os and all the other things (search, browser, calendar, etc) being optional and not tied in any way.  I know it can make security harder, but it gives users more options.   As far as moving cortana to office and off of mobile, well that makes sense, hardly anyone was installing it except those using office and outlook as their calendar any way. 

 

Also GG Ltt, assume the only reason MS do anything is because they force it on you.  There are lots of things MS can force on you but don't because they are counter productive.

She was not bad if/when she was a replacement for the voice activation controls (works well in Win 7, and is part of the base systems to Voice Attack, I've played with both for a bit of fun, and it does work). But beyond that? Can be a problem. I do use Google assistant, and would use Bixby more if Google was not more convenient.

[Arika]

i don't think I've ever used any kind of digital assistance, and never will. there's no part of them that i think "wow, i would totally use that".

[mr moose]

6 minutes ago, Arika S said:

i don't think I've ever used any kind of digital assistance, and never will. there's no part of them that i think "wow, i would totally use that".

I figure for an exec who is running from meeting to meeting and job site to job site, to be able to record appointments and send messages using voice commands on the go would be a huge time saver.

 

 

[Nowak]

4 hours ago, Kaloob said:

Windows 10 bad Windows ME good /s

I know you ended it with an /s but this is actually making me angry lmao

[GoodBytes]

26 minutes ago, Arika S said:

i don't think I've ever used any kind of digital assistance, and never will. there's no part of them that i think "wow, i would totally use that".

There is only one use I found that is valuable. Texting while driving. You get a message, it reads to you, and you can reply. No need to look the phone.

[Trik'Stari]

One of the first things I do on any new device is completely disable or if possible remove the digital assistant.

 

They're nothing but a security hole waiting to happen.