Report: Microsoft will upload Cortana to iOS and Android devices

Cortana, Microsoft's digital assistant, will be heading to iOS and Android devices later this fall.

20

Microsoft’s Cortana will be headed to Android and iOS devices shortly after the release of Windows 10, according to a report by Reuters.

The report cites people that are “familiar with the project” who say Cortana will be made available as a standalone application and will represent a new front in CEO Satya Nadella’s goal to deliver Microsoft software where its customers are, regardless of the device or platform they’re using.

For those who may not be familiar with Cortana, it was made available last year exclusively on a number of Microsoft Windows Phone devices. Cortana is powered by Microsoft’s Bing search technologies and can assist the user through interacting with their contacts, calendar, music, messages, reminders, and more.

This certainly isn’t the first time a piece of Microsoft software has become available across platforms as we’ve seen Office for iOS just a few months ago, as well as an Android and iOS version of Outlook. Making Cortana available on iOS and Android could certainly help Microsoft out as it’ll open the digital assistant up to more users. I’ve used Cortana in the past and I was always impressed with the technology running behind the blue circle, so I’d certainly be interested in having her on my Android and iOS devices.

Senior Editor
From The Chatty
  • reply
    March 13, 2015 8:00 AM

    Daniel Perez posted a new article, Report: Microsoft will upload Cortana to iOS and Android devices

    • reply
      March 13, 2015 8:33 AM

      hmm, I'll give it a shot. It cant be any more finicky than the Google stuff

    • reply
      March 13, 2015 8:42 AM

      [deleted]

      • reply
        March 13, 2015 9:38 AM

        yeah, that's very smart of them and good in every way!

      • reply
        March 13, 2015 10:00 AM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        March 13, 2015 12:01 PM

        [deleted]

        • reply
          March 13, 2015 12:30 PM

          [deleted]

        • reply
          March 13, 2015 1:04 PM

          MS realizes that services are the future, and they're also saying "Hey assholes, look--see how a large company can put their services on every device out there? Maybe you could stop being a prick and show more alternate platform love like you once did."

      • reply
        March 13, 2015 1:05 PM

        it really is. as google maps is all over, MS needs to be multiplatform as well.

    • reply
      March 13, 2015 9:09 AM

      Seems like Apple would block that without a second thought.

      • reply
        March 13, 2015 9:20 AM

        Siri already uses Bing as a backend so it'll just be another voice for the most part.

      • reply
        March 13, 2015 9:24 AM

        There's already a Google Now app, which is probably what this will act like.

        • reply
          March 13, 2015 9:39 AM

          Exactly, it won't be integrated with the OS so nobody will use it anyway

          • reply
            March 13, 2015 10:02 AM

            Yeah I used Google Now for a bit but then figured "Why?" because it was sort of pointless as a stand alone app, imo. It's great on android, but on iOS it just seems meh.

    • reply
      March 13, 2015 10:33 AM

      I'll try it out, but it sucks that it'll never be as good as Siri as you'll always need to manually launch an app to get started with it. But that's what we accept when we go with Apple. We get more app consistency, OS reliability, and efficient battery life, but we lose the ability for apps to do things like become the default voice service

      • reply
        March 13, 2015 12:53 PM

        Jailbreaks don't exist anymore?

        • reply
          March 13, 2015 5:41 PM

          I mean I'm sure you could do that, but I feel like it would take a ton of work. Siri hooks into so many things, so they'd have to take those out and add in one for a third party app that never was intended to be able to do such a thing.

    • reply
      March 13, 2015 12:24 PM

      Windows Phone simply isn't going to take the kind of market share that Android or Apple has, so this is their plan B. And as a SaaS company, it's entirely the right thing to do.

      • reply
        March 13, 2015 1:07 PM

        You do realize that WP has beaten Apple's market share in multiple countries, right? I'm not sure what the magic feature is in the US, but honestly the biggest reason they don't do as well in America is because our mobile market is fucking massively broken and Samsung and Apple are taking huge advantage of it.

        • reply
          March 13, 2015 1:55 PM

          China's about 0.7 percent, the USA about 3.8 percent if I remember Kantar's stats from this first quarter. EMEA is a little higher I think, but overall, it's still pretty small. Agree with you though, if the carriers and brick and mortar stores aren't carrying, or advertising the hardware, they're on a hiding to nothing, which is a shame. WP's make great corporate handsets.

          How do you fix a monopoly in the one market that Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly over..

          • reply
            March 13, 2015 5:37 PM

            They're very strong in Europe and I know at one point they had a bigger marketshare in some of the larger ones, or at least I read somewhere they had passed iOS in France or Italy or somewhere similar--but they simply don't buy in the numbers that the US and China do, as you totally pointed out.

            It does seem like the success was short lived, and their lack of new handsets with current specs certainly isn't helping. I'm sure Windows 10's release fanfare will create a bump if they present the world with a great phone, but I don't know if that will be enough.

    • reply
      March 13, 2015 12:59 PM

      i want a android launcher with cortana.

    • reply
      March 13, 2015 1:01 PM

      Meanwhile I still don't have Cortana on my Windows Phone. Thanks Obama Telus.

      • reply
        March 13, 2015 2:05 PM

        The annoying thing for me is I had it in alpha form but lost it when I took the w10 preview. Combined with the fact it stopped taking voice control commands makes me regret it. M hoping first refresh will restore it.

    • reply
      March 13, 2015 2:07 PM

      [deleted]

      • reply
        March 13, 2015 6:12 PM

        Ya, but it is a reference to Cortina being an AI in halo

Hello, Meet Lola