Microsoft will stop supporting the Cortana for Android and iOS platforms in 2021
Microsoft launched its first intelligent artificial assistant six years ago. It was embedded in the Windows Phone system to replace the original Bing search function. Cortana’s performance that year was recognized as the highest performance of artificial intelligence assistants. The actual performance Far beyond Siri and other artificial intelligence assistants.
In 2015, Microsoft released a standalone version of Cortana for consumer-oriented iOS and Android platforms. So far, it has landed on multiple platforms and devices, such as Windows 10, smart speakers, Surface headsets, and Amazon Alexa.
In November last year, Microsoft announced that Cortana will be more deeply integrated into Microsoft’s productivity tools, that is, Cortana will be integrated with Office and other office software, so as to maximize the productivity value of Cortana, and will be in 2020. At the beginning of the year, support for the consumer version of Cortana for Android and iOS platforms ended.
It seems that Microsoft’s plan to stop support has been postponed because they just announced that they will completely stop supporting Cortana for the consumer version of Android and iOS platforms in 2021, not this year.
Microsoft explains:
As we make this shift toward a transformational AI-powered assistant experience in Microsoft 365, we need to adjust our focus areas of innovation and development to give our customers assistance where they need it most. As a result, we are making changes to some U.S. consumer-centric features and functionalities with lower usage.
The first change is to end support for all third-party Cortana skills on September 7. Then, in early 2021, we’ll stop supporting the Cortana app for mobile (iOS and Android), because you can now manage your calendar and email, join meetings, and do so much more via our new productivity-focused experiences — like the Cortana Windows 10 experience, Cortana integration in Outlook mobile, and soon Cortana voice assistance in the Teams mobile app.
In addition, after careful consideration, we’ve decided to end support for the Cortana service integration in the Harman Kardon Invoke speaker in January 2021. We know that most of our customers primarily use the Invoke to play music because of its premium quality sound. To make sure you can keep listening to music or your favorite podcasts, we’ve worked closely with Harman Kardon to create a Bluetooth-enabled device transition plan that we hope will help ease the impact of this change.
Customers who receive a firmware update from Harman Kardon in early 2021 will still be able to continue listening to their favorite music, podcasts, and radio stations on their Invoke via Bluetooth. The firmware update will be delivered automatically to devices connected to Wi-Fi within six months of its release. Once the Invoke is updated, Cortana will no longer be accessible on the device.
