Microsoft’s Cortana software is a digital personal assistant that can respond to voice or text commands or questions. First introduced for Windows Phone, Cortana will be a key component of Windows 10 when it launches July 29th.
Cortana is also coming to iOS and Android. And if you don’t feel like waiting for Microsoft to officially release the Android version you can take a leaked copy for a spin right now.
Several websites including PocketNow and The Verge have posted links to download locations for the pre-release version of Cortana for Android. Microsoft plans to release an official beta later this month, with an iOS version coming later this year.
Like the Windows version of Cortana, the Android app lets you search or ask questions by voice, view information from Cortana’s notebook, and get news and information that’s relevant to your interests including local weather, nearby places to eat, weather forecasts, flight tracking, and more.
You can ask Cortana to set an alarm for a certain time, remind you to do something in a set period of minutes, or perform other actions.
Since Cortana doesn’t have the same system-level access on Android that it does on Windows, you can’t launch the app by saying “Hey Cortana.”
Update: It looks like Microsoft launched a private beta of Cortana for Android a few days ago. You can sign up for legitimate early access by taking a survey and signing up for the Windows Insider program. Or you can follow one of the links to a download that some beta tester probably decided to share.
Hey Brad the link is on Droid-Life.com too! It’s also not a completed piece of work yet, she is still…nubile?…lol Jail bait!
Well someone posted a study that shows you are correct, Google Now being the old man in the race has had many years of progress in its knowledge development base. But Cortana has a promising future and built in fan-base from it duty on Halo and it does show some promise, “The enhanced results returned in both systems had a far higher rate of being at least somewhat helpful, and in Cortana’s case, had a high rate of improving the standard search results.” https://www.stonetemple.com/great-knowledge-box-showdown/#VoiceStudyResults
Will it be top dog tomorrow? Probably not, but given a few years and regular individual use may make it to “where you want it now” faster. To me it wont matter since I do not use search much on my Note 3 I do most of that at home before leaving for the day or at the office desktop pc’s.
I think the real potential will be realized when folks use Cortana on mobile *and* desktop computers. It’ll be able to sync your data to send you reminders on whatever machine you’re using at the time, let you create notes on your desktop and send them to your phone, etc…
Yes, that is where the potential will be realized. When you set reminders on your phone, they can be displayed on your computer. When you set reminders, notifications, searches, etc. on your desktop, they follow you to your phone, work desktop, tablet, etc.
One cool cortana feature is the “contact” based reminders. I can say, “Remind me to tell Jim about the party.” The next time Jim calls or Texts me, that reminder pops up. Imagine this feature following you around on your desktop, tablet, and phone. Very cool stuff is on the horizon with Cortana.
I have a windows phone… and I find google now is better than Cortana for most uses. Mostly because I prefer google search over bing (and I think most would agree.)