Signs sure point in that direction. I, for one, won’t miss her. Great article by Preston Gralla.
[See the full post at: Gralla: Will Cortana go the way of Windows Phone?]
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Gralla: Will Cortana go the way of Windows Phone?
- This topic has 50 replies, 24 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 5 months ago.
AuthorViewing 26 reply threadsAuthor-
If only Windows as a Service could go the way of Windows Phone…
16 users thanked author for this post.
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Programs that cost Microsoft ongoing expenses always seem to go the way of the dinosaur.
I’ll believe they’ve shed any arrogance when I see it, though.
Here’s forever hoping for a “Windows 11 – Back to Business” edition with renewed focus on things that made Windows 7 great. Microsoft simply must not be allowed to usher the demise of Dave Cutler’s genius virtual memory design – especially today, when we have seen such strides in computer hardware power. The world still needs machines on which to do business development.
-Noel
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The arrogance comes from dominating a market for so long they have not seen any real competition – work place desktop. The arrogance makes them think they are indispensable to users and users most use Windows for everything. As far as other markets, they have lost the phone and tablet market to Apple and Google mostly due to this arrogance. Not sure how they lost the server market but arrogance has to rank pretty high also.
Their arrogance has blinded them to what users really want – reliable devices that do their primary functions well and are not a constant [pain]. Most users actually only care about the OS because of the ecosystem that comes (or not) with it and not the OS itself. This is why iPhones and Android took off, users did not care about the OS only that the devices are useful. This is why Chromebooks seem to be making headway, users care more about utility than the OS.
Give users a reliable OS with a decent ecosystem and they are happy. Fail there and users will wander away to greener pastures. This is a fundamental ‘law’ of consumer behavior, give them a reason to leave and they eventually will. MS ignores this at their peril as Windows is still a key part of their product ecosystem. Windows dies then many other products die also.
To be presumptuous I will try to summarize all the complaints about W10 as, “Users want and deserve a reliable OS that just works and allows them to get on with what they want to do.”
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Dave Cutler designed systems for Digital Equipment Corporation, culminating in Vax/VMS, which in the 1980s was way ahead of its time.
Then Microsoft hired him and he adapted his designs to become Windows NT, right when Microsoft really needed a grown up OS that could serve the needs of the future. Right when they needed to grow beyond the toy operating systems they had coded up to that time. Remember 16 and 32 bit Windows (3.x, 95, Millenium), which needed to be rebooted once a day or more?
The NT design base has been the kernel of Windows for what, almost 30 years, and it still nicely leverages the capabilities of even the most powerful multi-core CPUs today.
It was ahead of its time because it embraced security and scalability in its very design, like no other system did – and even very few had imagined. It was years ahead of Unix. It’s why Microsoft became all it is, a fact acknowledged by Microsoft Execs repeatedly.
I invite you to seek out and read more online about what Dave did for the computer industry.
Dave, I for one am glad you shared your genius with all of us and made it possible for me to type this on a Windows system.
-Noel
8 users thanked author for this post.
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All Cortana has done for me is forward me to Bing against my will. I for one am not sorry to see her go. I used to have a Windows Phone, and funny enough Cortana refused to even work because my keyboard was set to US English, yet my phone language was set to UK English (or something of the likes) and she kept saying she couldn’t speak my language. Can’t speak English when I speak English? Yeah, no use to me at all. When I got this Windows 10 laptop, Cortana was fun for like ten seconds, then I played an emoji game with Google Assistant instead.
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I don’t think this is a Cortana-specific thing….. are any of these “personal assistant” technologies really taking off? I know a lot of people are buying smart speakers, but other than the basics — “play Bob Seger”, “what’s the weather?” “wake me up in seven hours” “new appointment doctor 3pm thursday” — what are they being used for?
Even reviews of Hey Siri functionality on newer Macs has been tepid at best. Example:
https://venturebeat.com/2018/08/13/hey-siri-on-mac-barely-registers-as-a-feature-like-siri-itself/Maybe it’s all another one of those ideas like “3D TV” or even VR. People don’t want to wear goggles and people don’t want to talk to computers, so eventually these technologies will be pushed aside.
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I know *I* just don’t want any of those two letter things (VR, AR, 3D TV, AI), and even though I’m a dyed-in-the-wool geek, I’m being made to feel I don’t fit in because I just can’t find merit in Apps.
I think the real problem may be rooted in oversimplification… Make something that basic, non-technical users might want and…
A) It’s already been done before, possibly better (web page anyone?).
and
B) It’s practically useless to tech-savvy folks.
and
C) It costs a significant amount to maintain in a committed, ongoing way.Apparently the commitment and ongoing cost is just too much for Microsoft to bear.
We need technologies with more letters in the acronyms.
-Noel
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“Apps” as a concept in Windows 10 is just fine… don’t overthink it, they’re just fancy ZIP files that unpack into a running piece of software that is self-contained and can be deleted without leaving any junk behind. This idea worked great for Mac OS for 30+ years and now Windows has it as well. Windows Installer and similar tech have been horribly broken for as long as Windows has been around: namely that every third-party setup program you’ll use to install something needs enough permission that it could steal your personal details and data, send them off to some unknown place, then clobber your entire system and you’d be none the wiser. Yech.
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‘Not Invented Here’ is fairly common problem with many companies as they do not want to be seen copying an excellent idea from someone else. Many companies deem copying these ideas as admitting failure which it might be an internal failure to understand the market. So instead of copying the idea they come up with their own method that often is a much poorer solution. This is not unique to MS.
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Ya know, I just had a strange thought about this. Isn’t it weird that people (particularly younger ones) don’t want to use their actual voice to communicate with people via a device that is ostensibly a phone, preferring to use texting (a visual rather than auditory medium), but they apparently do want to use the voice for things like “play Bob Seger” that would otherwise be done visually?
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Well, Cortana may go, but if you read Gralla’s article, I could see Microsoft making a deal with Amazon, and replacing Cortana with Alexa. Amazon would certainly be willing to split the profits with MS if they could get Alexa on all the W10 machines after another update.
Amazon would get an edge over Siri and Google home in the competitive speaker market if they could get people used to their product on their PC’s, and apparently the Dot and Echo were listed for a short while in the Windows store. The bad news about this is that if that arrangement is made, Microsoft will make it almost impossible to remove/squelch Alexa on the PC…
6 users thanked author for this post.
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With Cortana replaced by Alexa, just think of all those tiles on W10 with amazon connections.
Windozon anyone? or windozoffWindows - commercial by definition and now function...2 users thanked author for this post.
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I fancy “AlexaD’HOs”, myself.
1 user thanked author for this post.
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I would welcome a digital assistant if the information that I gave it remained contained in the device itself, or wholly inside my home. Sending my private information to someone else’s server, however, is unacceptable, irrespective of the “convenience” that this may offer. You’ll never see an Amazon Echo or Google Home in my house.
By the same token, I don’t need Cortana or Bing to go on the Web every time I simply want to find a file on my PC containing a certain phrase or word. It’s none of their gosh-darned business.
Last time I heard about this, the setting to perform only a local search had been buried deep within the bowels of the Windows Registry or Group Policy Editor, with no UI presented to accomplish this–meaning that you need to be a Windows uber-geek to protect your privacy. (A run-of-the-mill geek would merely look around the settings presented to him.) Bringing back this UI would be a welcome, confidence-building step by Microsoft.
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Hear hear!
In the absence of tech/networking, one would never imagine a loyal human assistant spilling the family beans to anyone. That’s the very definition of loyalty. Wouldn’t we want our tech to be loyal?
This is the day and age where handheld tech literally does have the power to store huge amounts of data, begin to emulate complex thought, and actually help with things. Even though networking is ubiquitous (I was going to say cheap, but cellular plans really aren’t), it’s REALLY not the time to be sending everything willy nilly to some company’s servers – because it is also the time of unprecedented corporate greed, not to mention hacking and cracking by malicious actors.
And for those who would really like all their own tech to be synchronized, there’s STILL no reason data has to be sent to Microsoft or some other company’s central servers. Tech devices can certainly communicate with one another without much or any involvement with a big company’s server farms.
-Noel
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If they don’t do a web search on Bing every time you try to do a local search, how else can they justify sending that data to Microsoft?
Back when it was possible to turn the web search off, it was noted by some on the web that each local search resulted in packets being sent to bing.com even configured for local search. Rather than stop the (alleged) spying, I guess they chose to give themselves a better excuse/reason for the phoning home to Bing.
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The backbone of MS has been their OS and in my mind, they should concentrate and improve on that. Innovation, however, has never been their forte, so the list continues..from bob assistant to Cortana.
Windows - commercial by definition and now function...1 user thanked author for this post.
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Regarding “smart speakers” and such. With all the issues with security and privacy now, I just don’t understand why someone would want to install a device in your home that could be hacked and anything said could be monitored. And devices that include video introduce even more privacy issues. I know some folks just don’t realize what they’re bringing into their home but I have no interest in any “smart” home devices.
Red Ruffnsore
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George Orwell’s 1984 was not supposed to be an instruction manual.
https://owlcation.com/humanities/How-Has-George-Orwells-Novel-1984-Come-True-Today
Susan Bradley could have a popular monthly “Paranoia” post, doncha think?
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As far as I’m concerned, Cortana, Clippy and Bob are just three of MS’s “imaginations” that belong forever in the galactic bit bucket. Good riddance.
3 users thanked author for this post.
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I hope folks who do find things like Cortana useful don’t feel intimidated here by all the “I don’t want it” sentiment being expressed here, and are avoiding comment because they feel they would be outnumbered or something.
I for one really would like to hear from anyone who DOES get some utility out of a digital/AI assistant of any type.
I tried pretty hard and I honestly can’t think of a lot of good reasons I’d want to talk to my tech, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some uses…
It’s not a long jump to imagine, for example, being able to have one’s tech passively maintain one’s schedule as part of a complex lifestyle. Not forgetting things and watching the clock are precisely the kind of thing we mushy humans are bad at and tech is very good at. In an ideal practical sense, personal tech that listens in to what we’re doing (but doesn’t spill the beans to anyone else) and makes note of important things, might be very handy indeed.
All that being said, developing the discipline to just touch a screen a few times to schedule something important isn’t hard at all, and certainly doesn’t require AI – any more than it requires AI to use an alarm clock to get up in the morning.
Anyone who carries a smart phone already does battery management. There’s a remaining gulf between what that tech could do for us and what it does actually do. Why? Because Apple and Google and Amazon and Microsoft want to be able to sell information about us? Who decided that business model is the proper one to follow?
-Noel
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At the risk of going a bit OT, let me make the observation that this goes beyond Cortana and Alexa. Thanks to its developers, a lot of this potentially helpful tech seeks to collect information about its users that it doesn’t actually need in order to work.
A case in point. Last week I installed the latest version of Android on my smartphone. Yesterday I used Google Maps for the first time since the update. Before allowing me to proceed to get directions to the branch of the family we were visiting for Thanksgiving, however, Google Maps demanded that I give the app permission to access my microphone, camera, body sensors, and a fourth item that escapes memory, with the warning that otherwise it would not work properly.
Body sensors, camera, … I was ready to shut down Google Maps forever when I thought to try denying the permissions and see what happened. And guess what: it still gave us fine directions to our destination, with traffic reports, drive time and all, and no discernible functionality lost or crippled.
Then I started wondering… how many Android users out there would have just given Google Maps what it “needed” without even trying to run it lacking those permissions, and thus ended up giving even more of their personal information to Google.
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Noel,
I’ll chirp in on the side of an avid user of Alexa, we have an Echo and 3 Dots. At first I didn’t want one but the other half did so we know who won that battle. Well I fell in love with it. We’re both of that age where things go in one ear and out the other so the ability to say “Alexa, set reminder (9pm tomorrow watch special on History” or “Alexa, remind me every day at 11am to take my pill”.
That second one is especially important to me since that particular pill MUST be taken on a regular schedule both am and pm. As a lot of us here, when I get pounding on a keyboard everything else in the universe seems to fade away! Having Alexa pipe up and remind me saves me a pain in the neck, literally!
I find Alexa also extremely useful when I’m baking bread as it’s a 3+ hour task that requires I do things at specific times. So when I complete step one I tell Alexa to set an alarm for 2 hours (first rise). Then back to the computer of course. Two hours later I’m off in la la land and Alexa sounds the alarm and I’m off to do the next step. Wash, rinse, repeat, etc.
It also comes in handy when my wife is upstairs in her sewing room and I’m downstairs pounding on the keyboard. We can easily communicate with each other if one of us needs assistance with a task or needs help. (I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!)
Alexa is also handy for quick information look up, great for solving a difference of opinion.
Personally, I don’t worry much about what she is recording as our life is pretty boring and if anyone else can get some excitement out of listening to what goes on in our home more power to them.
As to Amazon using what they hear to sell us stuff…good luck! My wife and I are about the hardest sell you’ll ever find. Let them try and good luck to them. LOL!
We also enjoy playing J6 every day after watching Jeopardy.
I almost forgot to mention…I have Cortana turned off and hidden on all 4 or our Win 10 machines!
So that’s what I think about the topic.
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This is refreshing. A creative and intelligent use of technology. Good for you. There’s an African Grey parrot on YouTube who uses Alexa to turn the lights on and off!
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Thanks for the hint, I’ve looked for it.
Yeah, and the parrot added Fire. Tub butter. Talk. Graham. Trash. Ice. Cheese. Echo dot. FedEx. Chicken. to his owner’s shopping list. For real! Who would ever know a parrot could sabotage Alexa?
1 user thanked author for this post.
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Since I do not have a Windows Phone and have never used Cortana, this is a non-issue for me.
I early on found a way to send her away, and in the several “updates” of Win 10, I have not had her come back.
The concerns I have are the attempts to gather “information” on me that I don’t want to share and the intrusion of unwanted ads that are not even appropriate. Neither of these is relevant to the intent and use of an operation system which is what Windows is supposed to be.
When there is money to gain (I did not say “earn”), guess who loses?
3 users thanked author for this post.
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I would not be sorry to see Cortana go, but it’s a bit early to see it as a good sign yet, I think (I haven’t read the article yet, btw).
When I first bristled at the “is it a phone or is it a PC?” UI in Windows 10, I thought that once MS realized they weren’t going anywhere with mobile, they’d lose their reason for pushing the mobile UI so hard.
It was clear they had, since Windows 8, been trying to use their Windows dominance to try to sell Windows phones. Every time someone saw the phone-like UI, the phone-optimized start screen/menu, a program referred to as an “app,” or the Windows Store, it was a little reminder that MS has a phone platform too (buy now!). That seems as good a reason as any as to why a desktop UI had to look so, erm, “phoney.”
I thought that if they gave up the phone aspirations, they’d realize that keeping their dominance in a declining PC market is better than giving it up without getting any other, more lucrative market in the process. I thought that if they could just give up the “mobile first” delusion, they’d rework 10 into what it should have been from the start. It wasn’t to be, though; even with Windows mobile defunct, there’s been no reversal of the “phone or PC” UI. In fact, it’s gotten worse, as more and more options are moved out of the PC-optimized Control Panel and into the touch-oriented Settings app.
The phone-looking UI, like Cortana, is a symbol of this “innovative” new direction Windows has taken (which has driven long-time customers like myself away). It seemed like a good sign that they were giving up on mobile, but it hasn’t helped. It seems like a good sign that the much-hated Cortana could be going away, but I suspect that it’s another example of the same thing. Cortana maybe won’t be there, but it doesn’t mean that the other stuff that went along with it will go away too.
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One web site after another confronts me with a new interface designed for phones and not for my desktop computer. OK, I get it, my requirements don’t matter as much anymore; we’re chasing other customers. Still, I think this constant upheaval contributes to how users feel about the trend, of which poor Cortana is a symbol.
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A digital assistant is just fine if it is useful. However, it is up to the user to determine that.
Cortana is supposed to provide added value (it’s a feature) to the OS and other MS programs, but it has proven to be more an irritant than useful. The businesses that use W10 would much prefer Cortana be designated optional or gone altogether. If MS wants to pretend to be partnering with their arch rival Amazon just to have one of their most anemic products available on a mobile platform, they may regret that decision. It will attract some snarky press coverage. MS should just yank it out of W10 asap – I am sure they will have no problem inventing some PR spin intended to make them look like geniuses.
1 user thanked author for this post.
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There are a lot of things that I would like to see fixed with Windows 10: the update schedule, the lack of control over updates, the telemetry with no real “OFF,” the half and half UI, the attempt to turn every local search into a web search, the inability to remove unwanted “apps,” and much more.
They seem like varied and different issues, but they all center on one thing: Microsoft is attempting to use Windows to serve its own interests above those of its users. If MS could just take to heart the idea that the OS is there to serve the owner of that hardware, in a manner chosen by that owner, Windows 10 could be great. That one thing is the core deficit that leads to every one of Windows 10’s issues.
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I for one don`t use Cortana and have found it a waste of time and space.
If it has to be it would be nice to be able to un-install it if one does not want it.
All I need is a more [business] like rock solid operating system without all the fancy trimmings so that my mind stays focused on my business and not distracted by all these bells and whistles.
I use my computers for invoicing / researching / basic communication / photo editing and on a few occasions to listen and or watch certain music and clips. (Understandably the younger generations want much more).
So to that effect that`s where apps become useful and come into their own right “but” they should not be applied to everyone, (tarred with the same brush).
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