Cortana is next: Windows 10 may allow you to change digital assistants in the future

[Nowak]

Sauce: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Windows-10-may-allow-you-to-pick-your-own-digital-assistant-in-the-future.382211.0.html

 

Hey remember how I made a status asking how long until Cortana gets the axe, along with Groove, Windows 10 Mobile, Windows RT, Kinect, UWP, EdgeHTML and some other Microsoft products? Yeah.

 

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It's no secret that Cortana is losing favor with the PC-using public, and possibly also with Microsoft developers in some departments. A well-regarded Windows-focused leaker claims to have found evidence that the digital assistant may be replaceable in future versions of the OS. This is also somewhat corroborated by the fact Amazon's Alexa is now available in Windows' Store.

 

Cortana is not having a great time of it, according to its recent press at least. Some earlier reports have suggested that it may be discontinued, or (worse?) demoted to a feature in the Microsoft Office suites of the future. A more recent rumor indicates that it may even be possible to remove the digital assistant from Windows 10 altogether, so that the user can employ an alternative virtual helper of their own choosing instead.

With Cortana growing more and more stagnant, less and less people are using her, and it's not exactly a well-kept secret that Cortana could very possibly be the next thing on Microsoft's chopping block. New APIs found in Windows 10 by Albacore and WalkingCat on Twitter indicate that this is indeed the case.

 

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On the other hand, this is not based on much besides a thread started by the leaker Albacore on Twitter. It arises from findings from another tipster, WalkingCat, who claims to have found APIs concerning the requests "IsSystemCortanaAppReplaceable" or "IsSystemCortanaAppReplaced". In addition, Albacore now claims that the apps CortanaApp.View and UndockingTestApp exist. These titles may indeed suggest that Cortana will become replaceable (or 'undockable', as Albacore's terminology seems to have it) in a future OS update.

 

 

This is further compounded by Amazon's Alexa being in the Microsoft store.

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Furthermore, it is also true that Amazon's Alexa is now available for download on the Microsoft Store. This may be construed as a first step in readying alternatives for an option that 'undocks' Cortana from the Windows start-bar. On the other hand, this is still largely based on speculation and requires more concrete validation from the Redmond software giant.

 

Of course, we will have to wait and see what happens with Cortana, but with these strings, Cortana losing favor among the public, further development of Cortana being stagnant and other digital assistants becoming available on the Microsoft Store, it's looking like this is the end of the road for her. As with EdgeHTML being replaced with Blink, there'll likely be an official confirmation soon. When? I don't know, but the future for Microsoft's struggling digital assistant doesn't seem bright.

[Drak3]

Don't care until I can get the Space Core as my assistant.

[suicidalfranco]

good. The only assistant I'd ever accept use is Mycroft.

But since the entire AI assistant business is mostly useless gimmicks anyway, don't care

[NeuesTestament]

I honestly don’t care about digital assistants at all.

[captain_to_fire]

Good. For one, I don’t like that I can’t make Cortana a dude or have a different accent which Siri and Google Assistant can do. 

[williamcll]

I have no use for voice search anyways.

[AlTech]

1 hour ago, captain_to_fire said:

Good. For one, I don’t like that I can’t make Cortana a dude or have a different accent which Siri and Google Assistant can do. 

You can although I don't remember where you can change it.

[captain_to_fire]

23 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

You can although I don't remember where you can change it.

Is it as easy as Siri and Google Assistant? 

Spoiler

 

[bcredeur97]

so long as i can choose "no assistant" im happy

[Doobeedoo]

My system doesn't eve have it

[Commodus]

Not that surprising, really.  Cortana was one of the last products of the Ballmer era, when Microsoft both chased after everything Apple was doing and assumed that its mere entrance in a category guaranteed success (Ballmer acted as if every human was biologically preprogrammed to love Windows).   It doesn't really jive with the Nadella era, where Microsoft is focused on doing what it does best.

 

Basically: Microsoft is aware that it's 2018, not 1998, and that some things are best left to other companies.

[Misanthrope]

I get that this is apparently a very popular feature but I am still waiting for a feature that makes me give a fuck about digital assistants.

[vorticalbox]

Installed Windows for our new project manager. Quite office "Hi I'm cortanna"

 

-.-

[Nowak]

2 hours ago, Commodus said:

when Microsoft both chased after everything Apple was doing and assumed that its mere entrance in a category guaranteed success (Ballmer acted as if every human was biologically preprogrammed to love Windows)

Remember the "Windows Phone 7 buries the competition" parade when WP7 hit RTM in 2010? Windows Phone users can hate him all they want for killing their beloved phone platform but at least under Nadella Microsoft has moved away from Ballmer's insanity. Frankly he's better off in sports than a software giant.

 

Honestly tho it's kinda funny seeing every "innovation" related to Windows 10 fall apart. Soon we'll be back to Windows 7 but with a dysfunctional app store and questionable privacy policies attached to it.

[Commodus]

4 minutes ago, Nowak said:

Remember the "Windows Phone 7 buries the competition" parade when WP7 hit RTM in 2010? Windows Phone users can hate him all they want for killing their beloved phone platform but at least under Nadella Microsoft has moved away from Ballmer's insanity. Frankly he's better off in sports than a software giant.

 

Honestly tho it's kinda funny seeing every "innovation" related to Windows 10 fall apart. Soon we'll be back to Windows 7 but with a dysfunctional app store and questionable privacy policies attached to it.

Very much so -- it was classic Microsoft hubris.  "Well, of course we're going to dominate smartphones, we're Microsoft!"  Never mind that WP7 was missing features that were table stakes at the time, it really did act as if it was gracing smartphone users by releasing something new with the word "Windows" in it.

 

There are definitely some things in Windows 10 that are big improvements over 7 and 8, but yeah... you can tell that many of its major marketing points were the product of another era at the company.

[Nowak]

4 minutes ago, Commodus said:

Very much so -- it was classic Microsoft hubris.  "Well, of course we're going to dominate smartphones, we're Microsoft!"  Never mind that WP7 was missing features that were table stakes at the time, it really did act as if it was gracing smartphone users by releasing something new with the word "Windows" in it.

 

There are definitely some things in Windows 10 that are big improvements over 7 and 8, but yeah... you can tell that many of its major marketing points were the product of another era at the company.

Just good ol' Microsoft, not understanding a market but entering it anyway and expecting instant success, because they're Microsoft and it has the "Windows" brand attached to it somewhere.

 

Windows 10 has its issues but I'm glad that it's (slowly) evolving away from the Ballmer era.

[Jito463]

On 12/18/2018 at 9:09 AM, bcredeur97 said:

so long as i can choose "no assistant" im happy

Same here

On 12/18/2018 at 9:46 AM, Doobeedoo said:

My system doesn't eve have it

Well, you can't really completely get rid of Cortana, but you can do the next best thing (which I did).  Use PowerShell to chop her up, stuff her in a box and hide her as far away from the UI as possible.

 

.........

 

That sounds a little morbid, now that I think about it.

[Nowak]

1 minute ago, Jito463 said:

Well, you can't really completely get rid of Cortana, but you can do the next best thing (which I did).  Use PowerShell to chop her up, stuff her in a box and hide her as far away from the UI as possible.

 

.........

 

That sounds a little morbid, now that I think about it.

You can also disable Cortana in Group Policy Editor on Windows 10 Pro.

[Jito463]

1 minute ago, Nowak said:

You can also disable Cortana in Group Policy Editor on Windows 10 Pro.

Turns out, I did have it disabled in GPE.  Either I got confused (because some parts, like the Store, I could only disable through PowerShell), or the PowerShell scripts automatically changed the GP settings.  It's been around 3 years, so it's hard to remember for sure; and build updates haven't reset those options on me, so I haven't needed to mess with them since.

[Nowak]

Just now, Jito463 said:

Turns out, I did have it disabled in GPE.  Either I got confused (because some parts, like the Store, I could only disable through PowerShell), or the PowerShell scripts automatically changed the GP settings.  It's been around 3 years, so it's hard to remember for sure; and build updates haven't reset those options on me, so I haven't needed to mess with them since.

Honestly I can't wait until Microsoft lets you remove digital assistants in Windows 10 altogether. They just aren't very useful in practice.

[Rune]

How about just letting us turn off the assistants thanks

[iLostMyXbox21]

3 minutes ago, Rune said:

How about just letting us turn off the assistants thanks

True, we should have options in the settings that allow you to disable things that come pre installed, but without deleting them (or with, idc) so that we can keep the performance without all this bloatware nobody uses

[jagdtigger]

Just let us remove it altrady, its just another non-removable crapware....

[Delicieuxz]

1 hour ago, jagdtigger said:

Just let us remove it altrady, its just another non-removable crapware....

Crapware, spyware, and eavesdropware.

 

Thankfully, Windows 10 LTSB / LTSC doesn't have Cortana, or UWP. And people can buy an LTSB / LTSC license for cheap from eBay.