back to article Microsoft pitches lobotomized Cortana for iOS, Android handsets

Not content to have Cortana controlling Windows Mobile, Microsoft has released a toned-down version of its personal assistant tool for iOS and Android handsets. Redmond said that Cortana will run in a diminished capacity on the Apple and Google smartphone OSs, but will still allow users to link up their handsets with Windows …

  1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    "restrictions third-party apps have on access to system components in both OSs"

    I thought the usual complaint is that these restrictions are negligible.

    1. Fungus Bob

      Yeah, but this is Microsoft we're talkin' 'bout here. Those restrictions that are negligible to most are well nigh insurmountable to MS.

  2. hughca
    FAIL

    Only available in the U.S. and China

    Might be worth mentioning to save other readers a fruitless search...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Only available in the U.S. and China

      "Might be worth mentioning to save other readers a fruitless search..."

      Nope, haven't saved me anything because I'm not even slightly interested in a "personal digital assistant".

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Only available in the U.S. and China

        Interested enough to reply though?

  3. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Devil

    That OTA update better be optional on Cyanogen OS...

    If not, Privacy Guard is going to keep her in her box.

    1. VinceH

      Re: That OTA update better be optional on Cyanogen OS...

      Here, Privacy Guard will have an easy job: Cortana will remain boxed, unopened and still in the shop, so to speak.

  4. a_yank_lurker

    Pointless

    Slurp most be desperately trying help their 3-letter friends/minders. It will never be installed on any device I own.

    1. Geoffrey W

      Re: Pointless

      Glad you're here to keep us all safe by letting us know what SLURP and their sinister cronies are up to. You are one of the few who are still aware that SLURP is a thing and they must be so desperate by now that they will be hunting you down with helicopters and little tiny robots that can scuttle up walls and scan your brains with laser beams...best be safe and dump ALL your devices in the river...go DARK...NOW...before they find you...its not too late!

      1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

        Re: Pointless

        You obviously didn't see his handle 'A_Yank_lurker'. They are indeed from the USofA then it is no surprise that they are wary. Conspiracy Theories are rife.

        I worked over there for a couple of years. My Boss (a Harvard Grad) said that the US Moon Landings never took place. It was all filmed in a USAF Base in the Nevada Desert. An otherwise intellegent man but...

        Elvis is still Alive

        JFK was murdered by the CIA

        etc

        etc

        The place has more than the average number of nutjobs (IMHO). Just look at Trump.

        So be kind on them eh?

        1. Geoffrey W

          Re: Pointless

          If you are a Brit, as you appear to be from your post, then what on earth are you doing up at 6 in the morning? Everyone (in the USA) knows Europeans only work 3 hours a day and spend most of their time drinking and eating and avoiding good honest toil, and watching sex on your tiny TV's in your minuscule terraced houses. You dont fool me; You're an agent of SLURP!

        2. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

          Re: Pointless

          more than the average number of nutjobs

          More than the average number of nukes as well, it's a worrying combination.

          1. Eddy Ito

            Re: Pointless

            Cortana, what is the average number of nukes? I mean, what represents n which divides the sum of ai? Is it country, state, nation, UN members? Can I simply walk around D.C. or London and add up the number of consulates or embassies and use that? I'm just wondering how to count places like Flanders and Taiwan.

            You know what Cortana, nevermind all that, just give me a ratio of nukes per nutjob for the G20.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Pointless

              "Cortana, would you like a friendly game of 'Global Thermonuclear War'" ?

        3. Vic

          Re: Pointless

          I worked over there for a couple of years. My Boss (a Harvard Grad) said that the US Moon Landings never took place. It was all filmed in a USAF Base in the Nevada Desert.

          Such strangeness is not entirely national...

          An ex-boss of mine - an otherwise rational and intelligent chap - was *insistent* that directional cable was a thing, and his stereo sounded so much better for making sure the arrows all pointed in the right direction...

          Vic.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Pointless

      "Slurp most be desperately trying help their 3-letter friends/minders."

      Let's keep Google out of this.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Pointless

        Indeed. Am I alone in suspecting that at least some of those worried about Cortana using their private data will have gmail accounts?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Does her boobs really look like that?

    some guys might want her just to compare boobs with some of the ladies

    1. Kevin Johnston

      Re: Does her boobs really look like that?

      Never mind her looks, just remember that she has this annoying problem where her Rampancy starts causing her to spin off new threads until all the resources are in use at which point she will crash and burn.

      Hardly a good background for a 'PA' app

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Does her boobs really look like that?

      The story of Cortana

      http://news.microsoft.com/stories/people/cortana.html

    3. Gareth Jones
      Mushroom

      Re: Does her boobs really look like that?

      This'll cool your ardour: just remember that it's Clippy in a geek-bait suit!

      There's an image to boost sales of brain-bleach!

      1. MyffyW Silver badge

        Re: Gravity

        Cortana - full cup or balconette to maintain that level of perkiness? Oh, photoshop.... bugger

    4. Suricou Raven

      Re: Does her boobs really look like that?

      Stranger still when you look at the character: Cortana-the-character is an AI, though based partially upon patterns derived from a scanned human brain. Why does she have breasts? Because she deliberately designed her avatar model to look like that.

  6. Rustident Spaceniak
    Terminator

    Siri, launch Cortana!

    - I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Only for the Halo geeks who cannot get real girls

    I'm sure the acquisition of Minecraft was also a desperate attempt by Microsoft to portray itself as hip, relevant and appealing. To immerse the company into the geek sub-culture.

    By the way, Cortana is a spying, data mining wench on Windows 10. Do not use a Microsoft account and do not let her 'learn more about you'.

    Nice try, Satya.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Only for the Halo geeks who cannot get real girls

      "I'm sure the acquisition of Minecraft was also a desperate attempt by Microsoft to portray itself as hip, relevant and appealing."

      Surely it was so they could port it to .Net where it now runs loads faster to show how crappy Java really is...

      Plus for HoloLens of course...

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "If you can't beat them, join them."

    "That's why it's important to us that we bring Cortana to not only the Windows 10 ecosystem, but to other platforms."

    Refer to Onedrive, Outlook, Office, Skype etc.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why would I want this?

    I find Google Now and Google voice search far better at understanding context and actions.

    Can I ask cortina to "listen to the cortinas" whilst driving to work in my cortina? I think not. Yet I use Google voice actions most days on the drive to work to ask it to play music.

    1. Hellcat

      Re: Why would I want this?

      Annecdotal but...

      ...while trying to 'hurry up' a colleague who was taking too long on the lunchtime supermarket run, the driver tried to get his google now to call the straggler. Failed. Tried again. Failed. At this point I'd got my lumia out the pocket and hit the 'cortana' button. On his 3rd attempt google failed to understand him again, but my lumia understood and called the offending weekly-shopper.

  10. Barrie Shepherd

    I've yet to ask Cortana a question (windows phone) and get a spoken answer - all she delivers is a Web search so why bother porting her to anything. Currently I consider her a gimmick.

    1. Hellcat

      If you ask for random things, you tend to get web results. Asking for things lwith simple answers ike currency conversions, weather, calender entries, commuting information usually returns a spoken result. The reminders part works quite well ("remind me to buy milk when im at tesco" "which tesco?" "any" "OK") as does the sending texts and calling via voice. I wonder are you using cortana or the previous windows voice search which looks similar but is just basic voice recognition.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        ("remind me to buy milk when im at tesco" "which tesco?" "any" "OK"

        how does your mobile know when you're in tesco? (any tesco)

        1. Anonymous Custard
          Headmaster

          Re: ("remind me to buy milk when im at tesco" "which tesco?" "any" "OK"

          You've got Tesco free wifi available, but no mobile phone signal at all.

          At least according to my missus, when trying to use her Tesco Mobile phone in two of our local stores...

        2. cambsukguy

          Re: ("remind me to buy milk when im at tesco" "which tesco?" "any" "OK"

          Because she knows where all the Tesco are and she has a GPS system. No data needed.

          I know because it is by far the second most used command I use after "Wake me at ..." which works almost every time, first time and selects one of a long list of alarms for the next morning if it is not a usual wake-up day.

          Much quicker than tapping and stops me selecting a PM alarm becase she is thorough like that.

          Night workers would have to say PM I imagine.

          The Tesco reminders are really useful btw, I forget non-grocery stuff like toothpaste or rarer stuff like a bag of sugar all the time.

          1. This post has been deleted by its author

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: ("remind me to buy milk when im at tesco" "which tesco?" "any" "OK"

            So you leave your GPS turned on all the time, in case you go to Tesco? Must murder the battery.

  11. Yugguy

    A man cannot serve two masters

    Nor indeed can a virtual PA.

    I'd actually quite like a virtual assistant to aggregate my various sources of information.

    I just don't want one that is beholden to a corporation.

    Problem is I doubt such a thing exists.

    1. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: A man cannot serve two masters

      "Most notably, said Microsoft, the voice search function of Cortana will not be available on the app, as both Apple and Android have their own voice-activated assistants already installed."

      A recipe for a device with a split personality?

      Re: virtual PA v. virtual assistant to aggregate my various sources of information. v. virtual companion.

      This is actually an interesting point. The early work (I'm talking circa 2000) on "virtual assistants" focused on the PA ie. an assistant who looked after your diary etc. namely an assistant to help you get work done. t would seem that later work, which Siri, Cortana and "Ok Google"/"Google everywhere" represent is more focused on being a virtual companion, namely someone who is always there to answer queries and do stuff and to pass time with. Hence the effort being put into not just the persona but also the back story. The question that arises is when will we get to the point that people prefer to converse with these virtual companions rather than real humans...

    2. Suricou Raven

      Re: A man cannot serve two masters

      Not yet - but once the technology matures, someone is eventually going to put together enough information to create an open-source version. It'll probably occupy a few terabytes for the knowledge base though - there's a reason these programs are just front ends to a remote server farm.

  12. MrWibble

    "Android (as well as Cyanogen OS)"

    Since CyanogenOS *is* Android, that's a strange statement to make. Why not "(as well as CyanogenOS, Touchwiz, Sense, and all other OEM buggerations of Android)"??

    1. MrWibble

      I'll answer my own post - it seems that CyanogenOS gets a much more integrated version.

      Ars report

      So, now that makes sense - If only it was in the story here.

  13. AMBxx Silver badge
    Windows

    Windows Phone without Cortana

    Now MS have inflicted Cortana on the other 95% of mobile users, can we remove her from Windows Phone?

    PLEASE.

  14. james 68

    Bollocks

    ""Cortana was created to be a truly personal digital assistant – available on the go, no matter where or when you need help, and on whatever device you carry," wrote Cortana group program manager Marcus Ash."

    "No matter where" my hairy arse, try using it with the English language whilst the location is set to any other country (Japan in my case) and it'll puke out excuses that Cortana is unavailable with your settings/location. Of course the location could always be set to match the language (British English/UK for example) but then nothing else bloody works (windows store, office360 etc).

  15. Mike Bell

    I quite miss Power Pup

    Woof!

    Although, I do have to say that Miss Cortana does sport a rather attractive frontage.

  16. x 7

    "diminished capacity "

    so not responsible for her actions..............as in "diminished responsibility"

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    but, more importantly

    how do those boobies stay behind the straps?!

    1. Chika
      Coat

      Re: but, more importantly

      Boob glue?

    2. dogged

      Re: but, more importantly

      toupée tape.

    3. Suricou Raven

      Re: but, more importantly

      Those aren't straps. Cortana just uses surface textures to slightly-disguise that she prefers her human representation in the nude.

      The pointless fanservice is pretty blatant, but at least the writers made her a proper character. Sex appeal to the players is just her secondary function.

  18. Kay Burley ate my hamster

    Bing search?

    Without voice isn't this just Bing search?

    Seems like a con.

    1. AMBxx Silver badge

      Re: Bing search?

      Even with voice, it (she?) normally gives up and send you to bing.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    Good to see at least one MSFT app is weaker on iOS and Android than Windows Phone, usually it's their own OS which get the crumbs from the dev table!

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Clippy, is that YOU?

    or are you hiding in her hair? Come out, come out where ever you are. I know you're in there somewhere.

  21. A. Coatsworth Silver badge
    Terminator

    It kinda bothers me reading messages where people referrers to an application inside a phone as "she"

    It's unsettling, somehow.

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