The voice command battle in the mobile has come down to two choices: (1) Google Now for Android and (2) Siri for iOS. There are a number of tech analysts who believe Google Now to be the superior voice command between the two, but Siri flies past Google Now in terms of “her” personality.
Microsoft has traded in its old leadership for new CEO Satya Nadella, whose vision has always been about pushing Microsoft services ahead of its software. Windows market share has been hardly noticeable over the last few years, despite the fact that Microsoft seems to have more of a foothold in Europe and other places than in the United States.
Nadella’s desire to push Microsoft’s Office software (Word, Powerpoint, Excel) as well as the company’s OneDrive cloud storage and Bing search engine is consistent with a company that must do everything it can to gain new relevance in a market that is dominated by mobile devices, cloud storage, and software experience.
From what we know, Microsoft intends to bring Cortana, its new voice assistant, to Windows 10, an OS update that’s said to unite all of Microsoft’s mobile device operations to create a coherent experience for mobile users. At the same time, however, Cortana is also expanding her reach by stretching to iOS and Android the future, we’ve been told. How? By appearing as a downloadable app in the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
Cortana may appear as an app in the Google Play Store without a fight, but we feel that it may pose problems for Apple and iOS. Apple’s app restrictions are still high but not as bad as they once were. Google has pushed its own services such as Google Maps, Google Play Music, and even Google Play Movies to the App Store in the form of virtual machine apps that allow users to access content they already own, but it should be pointed out that Google is only trying to grant access to content already purchased – not add a competing store like Google Play Music (in the hopes of stealing attention from Apple’s iTunes Store).
https://thehoopsnews.com/2015/03/12/3810/nokia-here-maps-returns-to-ios/
Cortana is Microsoft’s voice command response to Apple’s Siri and Google’s Google Now, so offering the voice command within the App Store may not be received well by Cupertino. At the same time, however, Apple has given Google’s search engine a backseat to Microsoft’s Bing— so Apple may decide to play nice with Microsoft to keep Google at bay, in the long run.
