Microsoft bids farewell to dedicated Cortana app on Android
When it comes to digital assistants, there are many to choose from. On Android, the default would be Google Assistant, but there are alternatives such as Amazon’s Alexa and Microsoft’s Cortana. Unfortunately for the latter, it seems that Microsoft has decided that they will no longer be supporting the app for Android.
In a support article posted on its website, Microsoft has announced that come 31st of January, 2020, they will no longer be supporting the dedicated Cortana app for Android. According to Microsoft:
“To make your personal digital assistant as helpful as possible, we’re integrating Cortana into your Microsoft 365 productivity apps. As part of this evolution, on January 31st, 2020, we’re ending support for the Cortana app on Android and iOS in your market. At that point, the Cortana content you created–such as reminders and lists–will no longer function in the Cortana mobile app or Microsoft Launcher, but can still be accessed through Cortana on Windows.”
That being said, we have to wonder how many people would actually miss Cortana on Android. While Microsoft hasn’t exactly been successful with creating their own mobile operating system and hardware, the company later employed a slightly different strategy where instead of creating competing apps and hardware, they would instead develop for the competing platforms.
On Android, this has resulted in lockscreens and launchers and Cortana, although with the latter, it seems that that experiment is now over. We’re not sure why Microsoft has decided to remove the app, but if you do use it, you might want to start looking for an alternative before the end of January next year.
Source: Microsoft