Cortana vs Google Now

[RumoredNow]

My most used part of Cortana isn't really a part of Cortana at all: Quiet hours conjoined with calendar. My phone has to be on silent at work and I'm always forgetting. With quiet hours I have it set so that when the calendar says I'm at work, quiet hours come on. I have no idea if Google can do that but I don't think Siri can.

Ideally I wanted quiet hours by location but that's not available (yet?).

Geofencing is available...

You need to have "work" identified as a location....

"Remind me to silence phone at work."

 

[RumoredNow]

3 Questions and the results....

The contestants:

• My Nokia Lumia 925 running 8.1 Preview for Devs since like, day two and Cortana seeing casual, but increasing use
• My wife's brand new (just yesterday) Galaxy Tab S 10.5 running Google Now as a new feature. (She refused to use it before, but likes what Cortana has been helping me with.)

Q: "Who is the President of the United States?"
Both verbally answered a variation of semantics including "Barack Obama."

Q: "How tall is he?"
Both verbally answered he is "six feet one inches tall."

Q: "Where did he go to college?"
Cortana displayed a web search result showing Harvard Law, Columbia and Occidental. These results included the dates of attendance in the initial glance.
Google Now verbally stated "...Columbia and Occidental..." It neglected to include Harvard Law (maybe because University not classed as college???)? The search result card did not show dates of attendance at a glance.

 

[astondg]

I'm in Australia (using Cortana via the region change) so I think I miss out on some of the cool Cortana features, e.g. I don't get automatic restaurant or event recommendations and flight data hasn't worked for Qantas reservations.

So keeping that in mind, I was still impressed with Google Now on my friends Nexus 5. He'd been to the same store nearby a couple of weekends in a row so in his Now feed it was giving him store opening hours and directions for that place, it listed all the bus and train times home (Google Now lets you set your preferred method of transport), it had the latest World Cup fixtures & results and a number of other things. I'm not saying any of that was unique to Google Now (certainly World Cup fixtures were supplied by Cortana as well) but I was still impressed with what it could do. I think it's definitely a competitor that keeps Cortana honest.

I'm very excited about some of this other stuff I'm hearing for Cortana though, the after work run with a playlist that z33dev33l mentioned sounds really nice for example. The future looks bright.

 

[loribinca]

I think what you are asking for. Always able to use voice even when the phone is off is something that's part of the hardware. I was told this by a friend who works for Sony Erricsson. it's something to do with the phone going into a psuedo 'sleep state' but still having certain functions in the hardware work and not drain the battery as it would if the phone was on. He did admit that having that on a MS phone with Cortana would be pretty awesome, but Microsoft would need to implement it inside the hardware like specific droid phones do.

hope that helps you out

​

 

[D M C]

I just asked Google now who the president of the US is and it pulled up Obama's wiki page. Said nothing. I tried the same with Cortana, it said, "Barack Obama." I asked how tall he is and it informed me that he's 6'1" Google Now didn't come close. I believe you have the two reversed.

I don't know why you are facing this problem but here GN tells every thing more than Cortana (web search).
I think you are the only one who are facing this.

If you do not mind can you tell me which device you are using and which country you belong too.

 

[FearL0rd]

3 Questions and the results....

The contestants:

• My Nokia Lumia 925 running 8.1 Preview for Devs since like, day two and Cortana seeing casual, but increasing use
• My wife's brand new (just yesterday) Galaxy Tab S 10.5 running Google Now as a new feature. (She refused to use it before, but likes what Cortana has been helping me with.)

Q: "Who is the President of the United States?"
Both verbally answered a variation of semantics including "Barack Obama."

Q: "How tall is he?"
Both verbally answered he is "six feet one inches tall."

Q: "Where did he go to college?"
Cortana displayed a web search result showing Harvard Law, Columbia and Occidental. These results included the dates of attendance in the initial glance.
Google Now verbally stated "...Columbia and Occidental..." It neglected to include Harvard Law (maybe because University not classed as college???)? The search result card did not show dates of attendance at a glance.

Cortana Works for me also. I wanna see a side by side video

 

[RumoredNow]

Cortana Works for me also. I wanna see a side by side video

I'll start work on that soon...

​I like the idea of the throwdown on video. I'll try to come up with some good questions. Maybe, 20 questions?

 

[SteveSAPA]

That right there would be an awesome commercial for windows phone.

I go for a run after work. Cortana asked me when I left work if I was going home or to Rose Park. When I selected rose park, she asked if she should play a particular playlist I often run to. I can't even tell Google now to play music for me.

 

[z33dev33l]

i don't know why you are facing this problem but here gn tells every thing more than cortana (web search).
I think you are the only one who are facing this.

If you do not mind can you tell me which device you are using and which country you belong too.

us htc m8

 

[yokyto]

Its hard to say Cortana or Siri or GN. Especially in countries where Cortana is not released. MS say within next year but within that time both competitors will be more sophisticated. On the other site. Siri is now adopted officially by our Tmo and Siri has become official communicator for Tmo costumers in my country in our language.

 

[FearL0rd]

I'll start work on that soon...

​I like the idea of the throwdown on video. I'll try to come up with some good questions. Maybe, 20 questions?

Something like
1 - Reminder me to buy milk when I get to Walmart?
2 - Reminder me next time that I talk to my wife to buy pickup the kid @ school
3 - How long will take to get home?

 

[astondg]

The principle difference between Google Now and Cortana & Siri is that Cortana and Siri must be asked for information. They must be actively engaged in order to be of any use.

Google Now offers up information without having to ask for it. It's a predictive and passive information service.

Ah... have you used Cortana? It predicts where you live and work, and when you should leave to get to work or home. It automatically tracks flights it picks out of your emails. It can prompt you with local places to eat at meal times and events that are happening around you. According to an earlier post in this thread it identified that someone was going to a park frequently after work and using a particular playlist (for their run) and prompted to help them with that. Based on feedback from MS they are also working on package tracking (automatically via your emails) and a number of other things.

I'd say Google Now and Cortana are very similar in this regard, both quite 'intelligent'.

 

[astondg]

1) I have The Strain paused at home. When I walk in the door, I'll tap the button and resume watching it.

Right now Cortana doesn't know about this, but Xbox Video does and you can pick them up on your phone, PC or Xbox.

2) I have Pendulum - Midnight Runner paused on my HK BT headphones.

Cortana can play music for you via voice commands. Finding out what's currently playing is visible in a number of places on the phone already, I'd rather not have it show up in Cortana's feed as well (and I haven't tested if it does).

3) It's going to rain a lot this week

Cortana shows me the weather in its feed and gives automated weather alerts for serious events

4) Google stock is doing really well

Cortana also shows stock prices for companies. I have it showing me the stock of the company I work for.

5) It's Jen's birthday in a week. Thank God it reminded me. I had forgotten.

Calendar entries show up with Cortana as well. I'm pretty sure birthdays show up as part of that, including those from FB if you've connected that up to your Calendar. They might also show up in the Notification Centre from the FB app. Cortana can also let you add a reminder to say happy birthday to Jen the next time you talk to her.

6) Four people added me on G+
7) Mike Elgan just retweeted one of my tweets.

So there's limited Google services on WP (talk to Google about it) but in a similar way this kind of thing shows up the Notification Centre from the FB or Twitter apps and I'd rather it there than in my Cortana feed. I know Cortana has app integration though so I imagine the cross sharing will only increase over time.

8) My favorite food truck is still outside

Depending where you got this from (i.e. FB/Twitter, an app, something built in to Google Now) you could get similar notifications through the WP Notification Centre. As I said Cortana gives restaurant/food & event recommendations for things local but I can't say it's hooked in to that food truck specifically, we'll assume not.

9) My Eve Online character is about to fall out of training.

Again something I'd expect to see in the Notification Centre rather than Cortana's feed. But as Cortana has open APIs this could also be possible for the future.

10) My first meeting is at 8AM tomorrow

Cortana does this.

11) dum waldo just commented on my post about how Xiaomi just obliterated Apple and Samsung in China.
12) I have 3 work email, and someone just tried to ninjavite me to a meeting, and I declined.

Notification Centre, which makes sense to me.

It all just worked perfectly without me having to engage Google Now to feed it any of the above.

I would assume that for anything that uses an account, i.e. Google+, FB, Twitter, Eve Online, meeting requests, etc., you would have had to give Google Now access to these at some point, and if not then I'd be very worried. The same thing needs to happen on WP and with Cortana and a lot of Cortana integration with these services comes from the integration with third party apps, so this will improve as revs update their apps.

What I'm trying to say is that you wrote off Cortana as needing interaction to do anything, that's not true. I think Cortana is just as intelligent behind the scenes as Google Now, but there are obviously still some gaps in the kinds of services that Cortana is hooked into and this gap will decrease over time as MS and third party app devs add more functionality.

As I said before, I was very impressed with Google Now when I saw it recently and it seems like it still has the upper hand in volume of stuff it knows about, but underneath I think Google Now and Cortana are very similar things in that respect.

 

[z33dev33l]

How can people even compare them. I dropped taking Google Now seriously the second I realized I couldn't play songs from my collection via voice commands

 

[spaulagain]

How can people even compare them. I dropped taking Google Now seriously the second I realized I couldn't play songs from my collection via voice commands

I had no idea Google Now can't do that. Ok, now I'm sold, Cortana is the best!! I just assumed Google Now would let you do that.

 

[RumoredNow]

Got the (very) raw footage shot for the GNow Cortana show off. Shody sort of camera work, but oh well, I was juggling a lot of things and had no handy tripod for this one...

I'll edit and annotate, upload to the webz and have her ready when I can.

 

[spaulagain]

That was never the main intent of google now. Voice activation of phone functions is and has always been the secondary function of GN, the primary being predictive information. With Siri it's the other way around. I think most people around here agree that cortana is attempting to be a blend of the two.

Cortana is attempting to be a personal assistant, period. That means being predictive and providing you access/voice commands. GN may not have intended to be anything more, but at this point it needs to be. MS took Cortana to the next level and the more and more I compare her to the others, it's clear she's way ahead.

Most of the features you listed from GN are also true on Cortana. I'm not knocking GN, but I don't think it has much advantage if any over Cortana. And if you don't think MS is heavily invested in Cortana, then I think you should crawl out from under that rock you live under.

Cortana is so far the most well thought out service MS has released, she's constantly being updated, and is expanding geographically pretty quick. Something MS struggles with in most of their other services. It's a clear opportunity for MS to come out ahead of others and be the key differentiator. It's also a perfect fit between their enterprise expertise and passion for the consumer market.

 

[spaulagain]

Although I think you're exaggerating because I don't think the gap between them is more than marginal either way, it doesn't really matter. GN is getting a bunch of new commands very shortly (including more advanced music controls). Luckily Google now is also updateable on its own rather than through OS updates. Hopefully MS thought of that for Cortana once it comes out of beta

Cortana is already like that, she's gotten multiple updates without any OS update.

 

[trekgraham]

Google now is better because Cortana isn't available in my country lol!

There are certain thing which Google now can do but Siri and cortana can't.
Example - you can have a conversation with GN but not Cortana.
If you ask GN who is President of Lets say USA.
It will tell you.

Now ask.... How tall he is? Or what his age.
GN will understand who you are referring by "he".
And answer.

Cortana can't do that.

And I totally love touch less voice control. It's totally awesome.

I tried it on my Lumia, not only did it answer verbally who it was, gave his height and when asked where he was born

 

[Tiew SH]

I have a Samsung and Iphone4s. I sometimes use GN to do web search and seldom use SIRI.

But i love Cortana which is on my wife's Lumia. Cortana buys over me with feature which is awesome and which GN or SIRI do not have. She will remind her when she is leaving home, reaching office, passing by pharmacy and shopping at hypermarket. Just say this to Cortana: "Remind me to xxxx when i am at xxxx ". That is it. Cortana will not ask you nonsense question of " at what time or date as per SIRI or GN"! No matter at what time and no matter at what hour, as long as you are in the location, she will remind you.

This is the once feature which i found most useful and practical.