Cortana and third-party apps

[rockstarzzz]

This is one untouched topic. Cortana can be used by third-party apps. It was demonstrated that it could get Hulu to queue a movie and play it. It could get Facebook to open someone's profile and it could update your statuses and tweets.

What would be more useful than that is - if Cortana recognizes people from my inner circle on my social networks and when a toast comes at midnight about an awesome profile picture of me on Facebook, it goes as silent toast for everyone other than those who are in my inner circle. Even better, "remind me when..." - if that works with third party apps. So you get reminded not only when you text, call or email but also when you tweet, connect on Facebook, Skype, Viber, Tango, Foursquare, LinkedIn, Whatsapp, Messenger, Line or WeChat - Cortana reminds you that you had to ask about their cat!

Considering how Nokia and Microsoft have worked closely with Whatsapp and Facebook - even if this one feature comes in next Whatsapp and Facebook update - we are automatically looking at an advanced version of these apps compared to all the platforms!

TLDR; third party apps with Cortana abilities should launch/update quick.

 

[a1rphones]

We'll see how Google & Apple counter this Cortana features which is a lot more useful than their marketing gimmicks. Microsoft should be cautious to release it ASAP before the competition steal the its momentum.

 

[anon(7900571)]

Cortana has a bright future , remind me feature is very unique and I will personally use this because I always forget some imp topic I had to discus while ona call . It would be great to see if whatsapp seeds the update soon after windows phone 8.1 is available to developers with cortana API.

 

[rockstarzzz]

We'll see how Google & Apple counter this Cortana features which is a lot more useful than their marketing gimmicks. Microsoft should be cautious to release it ASAP before the competition steal the its momentum.

Apple can't steal it just yet I think. It needs to be on the back end where it can allow Siri to integrate into apps. Google probably can do that just as a patch, it likely has all the back end ready for such stuff.

 

[Markham Ranja]

We'll see how Google & Apple counter this Cortana features which is a lot more useful than their marketing gimmicks. Microsoft should be cautious to release it ASAP before the competition steal the its momentum.

That's what I'm worried about. Cortana will be US-only and it'll take a while for it to go out of beta too. In the next few quarters, we have Google I/O coming up and who knows what they'll show off there.

More importantly, there's a proper new iPhone due (not an S product cycle I mean) and Apple has been taking flak for lack of innovation (very justified imo). But they aren't a stupid company - who knows what the new iPhone will have. I just hope MS is aware of these timelines and gets up to the mark quickly.

 

[rockstarzzz]

That's what I'm worried about. Cortana will be US-only and it'll take a while for it to go out of beta too. In the next few quarters, we have Google I/O coming up and who knows what they'll show off there.

More importantly, there's a proper new iPhone due (not an S product cycle I mean) and Apple has been taking flak for lack of innovation (very justified imo). But they aren't a stupid company - who knows what the new iPhone will have. I just hope MS is aware of these timelines and gets up to the mark quickly.

Whatever those companies do, next big thing wont be it. All smartphones now are on par. The next big thing will be either motion based (Nokia patented gesture based screen or Kinect) or it will be 3D. Nothing else will be a wow factor. Did you see how quickly fingerprint scanning killed its novelty?

As far as artificial intelligence is concerned MSFT is on par and in a year will be in much better position than any company.

Also "but its US only" is now getting a bit outdated and far cried as if no one has read a thousand posts explaining you can switch to US for time being and adjust if you want it. Cortana WONT be another Siri with half *** launch worldwide.

 

[t333to]

UC Browser already works for opening bookmarks page, downloads and qr scanner.

 

[Markham Ranja]

Whatever those companies do, next big thing wont be it. All smartphones now are on par. The next big thing will be either motion based (Nokia patented gesture based screen or Kinect) or it will be 3D. Nothing else will be a wow factor. Did you see how quickly fingerprint scanning killed its novelty?

As far as artificial intelligence is concerned MSFT is on par and in a year will be in much better position than any company.

Also "but its US only" is now getting a bit outdated and far cried as if no one has read a thousand posts explaining you can switch to US for time being and adjust if you want it. Cortana WONT be another Siri with half *** launch worldwide.

Again,it's irrelevant what Siri or Now did when they launched. At that time, there was no competition in the personal assistant (and it's not artificial intelligence) feature.

Consumers will not look at the lack of Cortana and go like "hey, Apple launched Siri halfbaked, maybe I'll give MS a pass on this". No. Consumers are not out to to subsidise MS' R&D. Your average joe looks at a Lumia, an iPhone and maybe an Android and goes like yeah, I saw in the paper that MS hasn't enabled Cortana for me, so I guess I'll get the iPhone. It's ridiculous that a firm with MS' resources, both human and financial, cannot fix such issues.

And if any company has a chance at going for a real AI, it's Google. See Google computers learn to identify cats on YouTube in artificial intelligence study, for example. That's an example of a very very small step on the path to REAL Cortana (as she is in the Halo games). The WP8 Cortana is nothing more than an inference engine, built to look for very specific sets of criteria and perform matching actions.

And finally, what if I don't want to switch to US? That means most of my apps get screwed up and start reporting the wrong data. Or if English is not my best language? Or if I simply don't want to? Or if I'm the average customer who has never heard of this workaround and moreover, does not care - just wants it to work? Sadly, that is how most consumers are.

 

[rockstarzzz]

Again,it's irrelevant what Siri or Now did when they launched. At that time, there was no competition in the personal assistant (and it's not artificial intelligence) feature.

Consumers will not look at the lack of Cortana and go like "hey, Apple launched Siri halfbaked, maybe I'll give MS a pass on this". No. Consumers are not out to to subsidise MS' R&D. Your average joe looks at a Lumia, an iPhone and maybe an Android and goes like yeah, I saw in the paper that MS hasn't enabled Cortana for me, so I guess I'll get the iPhone. It's ridiculous that a firm with MS' resources, both human and financial, cannot fix such issues.

And if any company has a chance at going for a real AI, it's Google. See Google computers learn to identify cats on YouTube in artificial intelligence study, for example. That's an example of a very very small step on the path to REAL Cortana (as she is in the Halo games). The WP8 Cortana is nothing more than an inference engine, built to look for very specific sets of criteria and perform matching actions.

And finally, what if I don't want to switch to US? That means most of my apps get screwed up and start reporting the wrong data. Or if English is not my best language? Or if I simply don't want to? Or if I'm the average customer who has never heard of this workaround and moreover, does not care - just wants it to work? Sadly, that is how most consumers are.

This opinion is subjective. While you will prefer to have a beta product in your hand, I would chose to have a refined product. You may appreciate Apple dishing out beta Siri to the whole world. If I was an iPhone owner, I know how frustrated I would be. More than what we see with people who've changed their region to get a beta product on their phones here.

 

[Maitrikkataria]

The next big thing will be either motion based (Nokia patented gesture based screen or Kinect) or it will be 3D.

I don't think next big thing is just Gesture, but Internet of Things, that is predicted to generate over trillions of dollars into sales. Read here

 

[George Liveras]

Guys id like to point out something else... when there is no competition, development is at a much slower pace.... microsoft saw what the market wanted, how it responded to google now and siri and created cortana with new features and is taking it in a new direction... It is true the others will catch up, possibly coming up with something better or with a better feature... but thats the beauty of competition... it allows for progress to be made. as consumers we have only to benefit from this.