Microsoft’s Cortana Headed to iPhone and Android Phones
blogs.wsj.com
blogs.wsj.com
One thing that makes me hesitant when choosing a new app is what platform(s) it's available or will be available on. I bounce between Android and iOS almost once a year; this type of ubiquity Microsoft is pushing makes me use their products more and more because I know they'll be available everywhere I go.
Zero chance for Google doing it but maybe one of manufacturers or Cyanogen?
This makes me wonder if investing in Cyanogen was a wise strategy for Microsoft? This way they could get past the gates of Google and into the land of Android.
Window Phones are good tech. The phones are designed very well. The OS is fluid and it does things well. I just can't ever see it breaking into double digits of market share in the next 5 years due to public demand for Windows items and the lack of mind share. Maybe in 5+ years. I think MS has a better chance of just doing a Amazon and fork Android.
Maybe in 5+ years. I think MS has a better chance of just doing a Amazon and fork Android.
I would never, ever have thought that I'd say that, but since using a Lumia 1020 I have to grant that Microsoft created a damn good, flexible and extremely usable OS for mobile devices.
Remembering that atrocity that was Windows CE I never would have thought this possible and I really intend to stick with the platform. Despite the fact that software selection is somewhat limited compared to Android and iOS (which, practically speaking, is not really that consequential).
No, no, no. This war is won by distribution. Your mom doesn't go to the store to buy an android phone. She goes to buy a phone. Which phone? The one that the friendly employee at the store proposes. Which one is that? The one that the store manager tells the employee to push. Which phone is that? The one that corporate headquarters tells stores to push. Which phone is that? The ones with lucrative kickback schemes. Which phones are that? The ones that manufacturers decide.
Which phones will they decide on? The phones in partnerships with the company that changes their agreements and APIs every quarter? Maybe they will chose the company that they have a very profitable partnership going on for 3 decades. The company that has the power to waive a magic stick and turn them from unprofitable/breakeven to well into the green. Comapnies pay a lot of money to MSFT every year on patents. Samsung paid $1bn last year alone. Every manufacturer is losing money on smart phones because of that. Guess what? If you push our phone, we can share those patents with you. Oh, btw, we can subsidize those windows phones, give you some cash advance on the OS you sell for us just to stitch things up for the next few quarters.
Microsoft is all about business. Big business. Big partnerships. They suffocate competition in a very deliberate manner. Google hasn't competed ever with anyone. Moreover, Erick Smidt tanked Novel back in the day because of poor relationships with their partners.
On top of that, the OS will be good. Nobody will complain. Lots of phones will be sold in the lower end market. Some corporate deals will be done for the mid and high end markets and the ball will get rolling. Developers will be happy too. MSFT is making big progress in that lately. You also get the added bonus of developing for the windows PC and tablet platforms, in addition to the phone platform. Everyone will make lots of money. Except google.
People don't go to buy a "phone" in 2015. They go to buy an iPhone, a Samsung or Note4, than the other 1/3 of the market are people who buy the "free phone" which is a thing of the past. Now it is cheapest phone which people have already got burned on. People talk about what phone all the time. Not I got what the store sold me. If they sell you anything it will be an expensive iPhone or Note.
My friend's teenage kids both hated their Windows Phones because they weren't iOS and thought it was uncool. "It wasn't even a Samsung." They both broke the phones so that they wouldn't have to be seen with them.
I see Windows Phones at every store I go to.
Then how do you explain the lack of traction Windows Phones had the last decade? Did they forget to leverage all those super duper BIG partnerships?
Is there no way for the user of a Android phone to set Cortana as default? That seems strange given Google's and other folks' claims that Android is open.
If this is the case then it looks Android is more closed than a Windows PC where it would be trivial for a developer to create such a service without the platform owner's permission. How is Android more open than Windows again?
But while manufacturers such as Samsung can and have agreed to preload Microsoft apps on Android devices, I don't think Google would allow manufacturers to change the search provider. Though that still doesn't prevent them from preinstalling Cortana, or replacing the homescreen with a Cortana launcher.
Partnering with a custom ROM such as CyanogenMod is certainly an option, too.
>Although the functionality will be very helpful, because it’s “just an app” there will be certain things that Cortana does on Windows phones that won’t work on Android devices or iPhones. Some features require access to the system that aren’t currently possible with iOS or Android, so things like toggling settings or opening apps won’t initially be available in the Cortana companions for those platforms. Similarly, the ability to invoke Cortana hands-free by saying “Hey Cortana” requires special integration with the device’s microphone, so that feature will be limited to Windows Phones and PCs.
Is it a design decision or a platform restriction?
Hands-free voice control is tricky because Qualcomm controls hardware support. There are some workarounds if you don't want to license Qualcomm's tech, but I guess Microsoft may not want to use such hacks. Otherwise, without Qualcomm's dedicated always-on voice coprocessor, leaving the mic on would drain the battery.
I don't see why not; Samsung devices come with SVoice enabled as the default voice interaction.
Windows (desktop) is more open in the sense that the platform has fewer constraints on what the user can do by default. Android is more open in the sense that most of the source code is available. These points are not exclusive and do not conflict with each other. It's possible to have a very "hackable" platform without any source code at all - if there is enough interest in RE - and also a very limited platform of which all the source is available, but crypographic signing and other measures get in the way of being able to modify the software.
Windows (phone) is far less open though, and in general this has been the case with mobile devices.
But Windows (desktop) is slowly getting more locked-down too, as a consequence of the "war on general purpose computing".
Android is very open, if it wasn't how could other companies take the OS and make their own very successful clones. Such as Amazon or any of the Chinese variants. No one has done that with Windows.
Also you can make Android apps work on Windows or another OS relatively easy but the reverse isn't true (not counting the very hacky WINE on Linux).
All of that still shows that at least for now Google is still much more "open" than Microsoft is.
The unfortunate thing is that these moves where Microsofts gets to integrate with "open" stuff from Google, and then gets all credit for doing that, is only going to force Google to become more closed to stop Microsoft from doing that. It's kind of a nash equilibrium.
When you open up a lot of stuff and your competitor uses it freely and gets credit for doing that, but you can't do the same with your competitors' products - what's the outcome?
It reminds me of when Gtalk was open right until Microsoft wanted to integrate it with Skype. Then Google shut down that API because it couldn't have done the same with Skype, and Microsoft would've been the one with the app that has "both Skype and Gtalk", and not Google.
Most of the work Microsoft does on Android (and iOS) would easily be replicable by Google on Windows Phone: Office, Skype, OneDrive... are all apps that Google has competitors for on Android and iOS. Instead of playing the same game, Google chooses to be the evil one. [1]
0: http://www.infoworld.com/article/2610371/android/meet-aosp--...
1: https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2013/08/15/the-lim...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/36py7f/chrome_for_...
You can install AOSP or custom ROMs such as CyanogenMod and have a perfectly free, modern smartphone OS. You won't have access to all the Android apps in the Google Play Store, but that's self-evident. The F-Droid repo provides verified FOSS apps, or if non-Google proprietary sources are permitted there's the Amazon Appstore.
> Most of the work Microsoft does on Android (and iOS) would easily be replicable by Google on Windows Phone: Office, Skype, OneDrive... are all apps that Google has competitors for on Android and iOS.
The app in question, Cortana, will be able to integrate into Android at least as deeply as the Bing app does now, which means it can replace Google search in most ways. If Microsoft had an Android launcher, they could ensure Google is completely replaced (by supplanting Google Now). Combined with Microsoft's existing Android lock screen and other apps, all that's needed to complete the Microsoft Android experience is Windows Store for Android.
On the other hand, the closest you can get to replacing Cortana on Windows Phone is to disable Cortana completely, which means queries will be handled by the search engine in your default browser instead. IE is the only browser option, but you can choose either Google or Bing (except on phones that disable the Google option).
Google does achieve remarkable results on iOS despite its restrictions. But that simply demonstrates the monumental effort it would take to bring a sub-par version of the Google experience to a locked-down platform, whereas Microsoft can take over Android with relative ease. iOS has marketshare and legacy ties to justify the expense, but WP has neither.
I have an older Nexus 4 that I keep around, with CyanogenMod installed on it and without Google's services, which is pretty much AOSP. Despite what seems to be popular opinion, it's quite usable. The big thing that is missing and the reason for why Google affords to keep mobile phone makers by their balls are of course Google Play, Gmail and Google Maps. You do have F-Droid and Amazon's app store. It's quite an interesting experience - if you have an Android lying around, try it out.
Opera is available for Windows phone now.
https://www.windowsphone.com/en-ca/store/app/opera-mini-beta...
It's similar to mobile Chrome's "Data Saver" feature, or Turbo mode in the full Opera Mobile browser. Great for saving data, if you're on a limited connection.
Would be nice if you could set it as the default browser on iOS or WP, too.
You mean like how Chrome is bundled with Flash and Java updates on Windows, yet alternate browsers cannot even be made for Chromebooks?
>is only going to force Google to become more closed to stop Microsoft from doing that.
Being "Open" is about principles, no matter the outcome. If you close off something because people are using it, then it was never open in the first place.
It's like saying I offer you $100 on the condition that you won't take it. What would be your reaction if MS restricted Secure Boot on Windows to stop Linux because people are dual booting or switching to it? Or what if they block Chrome on Windows to boost IE/Edge? Would you say they are being forced to do that because Chrome is getting marketshare, like you said Google was forced to close Hangouts and Android?
From any point of view. WP is the tightest OS I can think of (or at least as tight as iOS) without the user benefiting from it in any other way besides general security.
Heck, even the settings menu is depressingly limited.
After 15 years of using smart phones right back to Palm Treo things WP is the only platform that is depressingly boring and entirely uneventful.
And you know what, that's why I use it. It just works.
I've been left in the poop a couple of times by Android and iOS. Even old windows mobile shot me down once or twice.
Bringing back cross-platform IE is probably a lost cause nowadays, but a cross-platform Spartan is possible.
It was PPC only, last updated in 2003.
People often forget about this when bashing IE.
The most annoying thing about that is the "quiet hours" feature is somehow dependent on Cortana, so the phone doesn't do that either.
(Other than that, very nice phone and OS, just hobbled)
I was also bummed about this change, but used it infrequently enough that I don't mind it being located under Lenses.
If you check the Store, you can even pick up an app called QR for Cortana that can be pinned as a shortcut to get quick access to the Lenses menu.
It will be interesting to see which one wins out this time. So far it's clearly Apple, but time will tell.
If you want to compare apples to apples (no pun intended) you should take a look at software sales. So far, neither seems to be doing that well on mobile platforms. I have never bought a Microsoft nor an Apple app on my mobile devices.
This on the other hand, looks like real competition - and competition is always exciting.
Microsoft Excel 1.0 was first on Mac, there was never a 1.0 for DOS or Windows. Windows is still the monopoly on PC with 90+% share due OEM and EFI. For the mobile devices both iOS and Android are big, then comes the smaller rest of Win, Blackberry, Bada, Jelly, Ubuntu, FirefoxOS, etc. WinCE had a head start 20 years ago, but especially the die hard Windows users turned away from WinMobile 6.5 (CE based) as it was dumped with all its app eco system in favor of WinPhone 7 (still CE but with only Silverlight/XAML apps) that was as useful as Android 1 or iOS 1.
Looks like it was quickly knocked off the front page by the flamebait detector thanks to the offtopic toxic comments accusing MS employees of voting up the the post.
(and yes, extend, and possibly extinguish may still be next).
As a part-time Windows 10 and MS Band and Android/iOS user, I for one will happily use this.
And if I can integrate it for my own voice recognition needs in third party apps, all the better.