Windows Phone 8.1 Introduces Cortana (Update: Hands-on)
Microsoft shows off the new Siri and Google Now competitor in Windows Phone 8.1
Today Microsoft announced Windows Phone 8.1 at Build, the company's annual developer conference in San Francisco. Windows Phone 8.1 adds a voice-enabled personal digital assistant called Cortana, along with a host of user experience additions and personalization features.
The most significant part of this new version is Cortana, a personal assistant feature built to rival Apple's Siri and Google Now, and powered by Microsoft's search engine, Bing. Named after the AI character in Halo, Cortana is available as a Live Tile and is accessible via the regular Windows Phone search function.
Like Google Now, Cortana follows and understands your behavior on the phone. It understands relationships, location, and many of your habits. Cortana can read the email on your phone (with permission) and extract relevant information; the example Microsoft Windows chief Joe Belfiore gave involved Cortana noticing flight information and asking if he wanted the flight's status tracked.
Cortana can also be extended to third-party apps via APIs, and there will be a few enabled applications from the get-go, including Skype, Facebook, Hulu and Twitter. For example, you can tell Cortana to call a particular Skype contact, or add a particular TV show to your Hulu queue, or check on a friend's Facebook status.
Belfiore said that the company actually talked to real-life assistants to find out how they do their job, and one of the discoveries was that most of them kept very specific information in a notebook, so Microsoft included such a notebook, and makes that transparent to the user. That information includes things like "Interests" and "Inner Circle." The latter refers to the people who matter most in your life and work, and Cortana purportedly understands those relationships and uses it to your advantage. For example, you can use Cortana's understanding of relationships for setting up rules to be interrupted when in the Quiet Hours feature of Windows Phone.
As you would expect, you can talk to Cortana, asking her to make appointments, find restaurants via services like Yelp, and other helpful information, and get back answers both by voice and by actual data-oriented results.
Cortana will launch in beta form, and while it had a few glitches during Microsoft's demonstrations, its errors didn't seem all that different than the ones you still get in Siri.
Microsoft also added a couple of new Windows Phone hardware partners to its growing list (expanded during Mobile World Congress to include the likes of Huawei and ZTE for example), adding Micromax and Presigio. Yeah, we haven't heard of them either.
Microsoft added what it calls "Action Center" to Windows Phone 8.1, which is a quick way to access key settings features, like battery life and Bluetooth access, and also app notifications. Just like in Android, a swipe from the top of the screen gets you to the Action Center.
There were other UI enhancements, like a personalized lock screen (Microsoft has made APIs available so that developers can design some creative, interactive experiences). The Start screen's layout can also be customized more: you can change the density of tiles on the layout, and choose a background to put behind the tiles, for example. There are changes to the Windows Store experience, and a new Calendar app where you can swipe between days.
WiFi Sense learns about public WiFi hot spots, and can connect to them automatically when you're in range, and those that require you to accept terms of use, or provide other information can be fed all of that automaticaly as well.
There is also a new version of Skype in Windows Phone 8.1, and one of the more interesting aspects is that it is integrated into the Phone app, so you can switch a phone call to a Skype video call with the press of a button. Internet Explorer 11 will also be part of Windows Phone 8.1.
Microsoft also added a Swype-like function for its Word Flow keyboard.
Microsoft did not announce a timeframe for Windows Phone 8.1, only saying that it would be available on existing phones within the next few months. It will appear on new phones in late April or early May.






So what about all the other features they ripped from Google? How about how Cortana is essentially a Google Now clone. Or how about pull down notifications? Name one thing Windows Phone has innovated... It really is sad that a company can exist for so long thanks to monopoly power when it offers no innovation whatsoever and is frequently 2 years behind the competition in almost every aspect. I hear they are handing out those licenses for free now lol.
Looks like the Nokia Lumia 1520
So what about all the other features they ripped from Google? How about how Cortana is essentially a Google Now clone. Or how about pull down notifications? Name one thing Windows Phone has innovated... It really is sad that a company can exist for so long thanks to monopoly power when it offers no innovation whatsoever and is frequently 2 years behind the competition in almost every aspect. I hear they are handing out those licenses for free now lol.
You act like Google is innovative when in reality they haven't innovated anything since their search engine. Most everything they have come out with has been done before or was created by someone else. It just happens that sometimes they tend to make it better.
For example, originally Android was supposed to compete with Blackberry and Windows Phone but when the iPhone came out and was successful, it was changed to be more of a all consumer OS. It is still a crappy OS. My Galaxy S4 is starting to show issues with it and probably needs a FDR which is annoying.
Another example, that endless image search Google now has? And how it doesn't just open the image when clicked but rather a new windows? Yea, Bing had that before Google did.
Nothing is truly innovative. No one company innovated everything not matter how large or how long they have been around.
As for WP 8.1, all I can say is that it gives a similar experience as Windows tablets and 8.1 desktops do and I can say for sure that in the future it may get even closer together while Apple and Google both will be behind.
Not to be mean or trying to offend you, but did you even read the article? This is not for Windows 8.1. This is for Windows Phone 8.1. Not quite the same.
There is very little that Windows Phone or Microsoft does better than anyone else other than have a large library of applications for their desktop OS. Through a monopoly on the desktop and office suite market, they continue to force people into paying stupid sums of money for proprietary solutions simply on the basis of the need for compatibility.