Hands-on with Microsoft Cortana for Android [VIDEO]
Last month Microsoft confirmed that their personal voice assistant, Cortana, would be coming soon to Android. Today it has (unofficially) arrived in the form of an APK. We were able to successfully install the app on our Nexus 5 and give it a test run.
Cortana is similar to Google Now and Siri. It can answer your voice inquiries and display information before you need it. Things like sports scores, weather, restaurant recommendations, movie times, and more appear in a single stream. In the “Notebook” you can tell Cortana more information about yourself so she can provide exactly what you’ll need. You can even tell her your name so she can address you more informally.
This version of Cortana is likely the beta that Microsoft mentioned last month. Everything basically works right now, but it could use some polish. You can do most things you would expect to be able to do in Google Now and Siri, but conversational search doesn’t work. We expect the official app to be released alongside Windows 10 (which will also run Cortana). If you are a PC user you might want to check out what Cortana can do.
To check out the beta you can go here and take the survey. Download the Cortana APK from here. Enjoy!
[via Twitter]