Microsoft’s Cortana digital assistant has been the subject of rave reviews since first emerging with Windows Phone 8.1, and having begun life as a mobile-based service, will be an integral part of the software giant’s wider ecosystem with Windows 10. As the company continues to ready its forthcoming edition of Windows, it has now been revealed that Cortana will be headed to both iOS and Android in the near future, and given the numerous capabilities of Cortana and the improvements that’ll no doubt arrive during the coming months, it’s a move that actually makes a great deal of sense.
Microsoft Research managing director Eric Horvitz has been speaking to Reuters with regards to future plans, and and it seems like the iOS and Android editions of Cortana could be ready for prime time around the period of Window’s 10’s release, slated for this fall. Given that Microsoft only took the wraps off the vastly-altered Windows 10 last fall, it would be quite a good turnaround time if the software maker can have everything ready by, say, September / October, and from what we’ve seen so far, the next generation of Windows offers an all-round improvement.
With Siri and Google Now having been around for years, it took Microsoft quite a while to join the fray, although having been able to learn from the mistakes of Apple and Google’s respective efforts, Cortana appears already to have made up for lost time. With a new edition in the works, being code-named “Einstein,” it looks like Microsoft is keen to consolidate and improve upon Cortana’s exciting start in the consumer market, and given the Windows 10, iOS and Android support, Microsoft could be about to make some serious ground on its two major adversaries in mobile space.
Let’s not beat around the bush – Cortana for Android or iOS is never going to offer the same kind of functionality as the Windows edition. Yet, with Google and Apple’s software a head and shoulders above Windows Phone – soon to be Windows 10 for Phones – in terms of market share, Cortana’s branching out could, if nothing else, serve as a decent advert for Windows 10.
Whether it will be a success remains to be seen, but with Cortana’s eventual successor harboring the ability to source data from artificial intelligence, there’s much to look forward to from Microsoft in the immediate future.
(Source: Reuters)
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