Cortana is now available for download on Google Play Store.
Last month Microsoft came to us with a little surprise in store. A couple of users were enrolled in order to test out the new beta version of Cortana made specifically for Android devices. This month it’s official: Microsoft launches Cortana on Android and the stakes are quite high.
Microsoft has a lot on his hands since it decided to launch the virtual assistant on Android device. Cortana has a lot of battles to win but not with Xenos this time but with her main competitor which in Google Now.
Google’s speech engine has gained quite a foothold on the Android market. Nearly all of Google Play’s services have integrated this search engine which is based on the newest AI technologies developed by the tech giant.
But it would seem that Microsoft wants to aim even higher this times, not only to promote its virtual assistant but also to overtake Google’s reign over the voice assisted search engines domain. Unfortunately, according to a source inside Microsoft, it would seem that Cortana for Android comes with a couple of limitations. For instance, Google Now is the perfect example of an integrated service. Nearly every browser available for mobile devices uses the service in order to conduct voice searches. You can find it in Firefox, Opera and even in the Google Play service.
The new version a Cortana comes not as an integrated service but as a simple application, which you can download from Google’s Play Store. Whether to download the application or not is entirely your decision, but it would seem that there are quite of a lot of clips out there detailing how functional the virtual assistant is when it is associated to Android-powered devices.
According to Microsoft’s spokespersons, this move was not entirely gratuitous. It would seem that following their success of bringing Cortana to Windows 10, Microsoft plans on expanding its palette of compatible devices. Thus, on the long run, Microsoft intends on delivering the virtual assistant to iPhone OS and to the Cyanogen OS.
The virtual assistant is quite nifty and very practical when it comes to everyday chores, especially if you are that type of person who easily forgets. And now, as the jolly seasons are upon us, Cortana will become quite handy when drafting up those annoying Christmas lists.
And you can even use her for other tasks as well, for example, if you wish to buy a certain item from a certain store, you can set Cortana to issue an audio reminder next time you’ll pass by that store.
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