After over 3- months in beta, Cortana for Android, Microsoft’s own intelligent personal assistant is now officially available for download from the Google Play Store.
This app competes with Google’s own digital assistant that’s built into all Android phones called Google Now. The major difference between Cortana and Google Now is that users with a Windows 10-powered PC can send a text message reply when they miss a phone call on their smartphone.
Cortana for Android will allow users set appointments and reminders and would even make suggestions about things each user might be interested in doing.
According to Microsoft, the purpose of making Cortana available on Android isn’t to compete with Google but instead to make an efficient digital assistant available to all users regardless of what device they choose to use- whether it be PC, or an
Due to developer restrictions though, Cortana on Android isn’t all it can be. For instance, users at the moment can’t say “Hey Cortana” to activate the digital assistant. However, Microsoft is currently partnering with Cyanogen in order to make this voice-activation feature available on Cyanogen-powered smartphones.
Around the same time Microsoft released the public beta for Android, it also began the public beta for iOS. Cortana on iOS is now out of public beta and officially available for download