Chhavideep Singh
Source: Dice Insights
Windows maker, Microsoft has recently announced to be officially shutting its Cortana application support on Android and iOS devices. The company has also removed support for Cortana from its own Surface headphones as well, as mentioned in a report by The Verge. Following this highlight, the technology company has also removed the application from Android Play Store and Apple App Store.
Cortana was first introduced back in the year 2015 as a bridge between Windows PC and mobile devices but it was doomed as it could not gain proper traction as targeted by Microsoft at that time despite a major redesign. Cortana is a virtual assistant by Microsoft just like Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri but these technology companies took their service to a whole new level where Microsoft found it very difficult to catch up. However, eventually, Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella recognised the flaw with Cortana and revealed that Microsoft is no longer a competitor to Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri and even Google Assistant.
According to a report by MacRumors, Microsoft mentioned in its support note that the company is ending its Cortana application service for Android and iOS while still being continued as a productivity assistant.
Having said all that, Cortana is not yet a complete waste of time, energy and effort for Microsoft. The company is actually looking forward to its potential as a Conversational AI that will further enhance Microsoft’s enterprise-based offerings, as mentioned by The Verge.
However, the technology company had once planned a complete future for Cortana and Cortana-enabled products and services including thermostats, fridges and toasters. Well, unfortunately, Microsoft’s Cortana-enabled Speakers and other devices like the GLAS thermostat had to be removed from Cortana’s digital assistance after Microsoft’s decision.
For users who used Cortana on either their Android or iOS devices, your content that you created on the Cortana application such as lists and reminders will no longer be accessible through the mobile application but one can view and edit that content using Cortana for Windows. All documents that were first created and stored in Cortana mobile application, such as tasks, lists and reminders will now be available on Microsoft’s To-Do application.
As far as virtual voice assistance goes, Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant and Apple’s Siri are reaching places with their quick and accurate responses. Recently, Apple has announced to introduce two new English speaking Siri voices which will go through its neural text to speech technology, offering a more natural and responsive voice assistant for Apple users.