Upcoming changes to Cortana

#1

Post by waltherp » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 3:10 AM UTC

Upcoming changes to Cortana
support.microsoft.com

Re: Upcoming changes to Cortana

#2

Post by justix12 » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 3:12 AM UTC

Will it still work on my Zune?

Re: Upcoming changes to Cortana

#3

Post by culturestate » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 4:33 AM UTC

To clarify, they aren't shutting down Cortana completely - they're ending support for the standalone Cortana apps, which makes sense. What I find more interesting is how they're handling their smart speaker partnership:

> ...we’ve worked closely with Harman Kardon to create a Bluetooth-enabled device transition plan that we hope will help ease the impact of this change. Customers who receive a firmware update from Harman Kardon in early 2021 will still be able to continue listening...on their Invoke via Bluetooth.

If I'm reading this correctly, they're basically saying "very few people really use this as a 'smart' speaker, so we'll just turn it into a normal Bluetooth speaker and move on." I'm not sure whether that says more about Cortana or about the smart speaker market, but it seems like an...ok compromise? Certainly better than just bricking the thing.

Re: Upcoming changes to Cortana

#4

Post by 29athrowaway » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 5:26 AM UTC

justix12 wrote: post #2

Will it still work on my Zune?

People made fun of the Zune but if you look at it objectively it was actually a good product for its time.

The timing and the marketing was perhaps not as good as the product itself.

Re: Upcoming changes to Cortana

#5

Post by mrweasel » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 5:55 AM UTC

culturestate wrote: post #3

To clarify, they aren't shutting down Cortana completely - they're ending support for the standalone Cortana apps, which makes sense. What I find more interesting is how they're handling their smart speaker partnership: > ...we’ve worked closely with Harman Kardon to create a Bluetooth-enabled device transition plan that we hope will help ease the impact of this change. Customers who receive a firmware update from Ha…

I think very few use the voice feature, but those who do will hate losing it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out that only a few percent of iPhone users uses Siri.

The hype surrounding digital voice assistants have died out. It’s still useful in a few situations, but not having one isn’t as huge a defeat as it would have been 5 years ago. Microsoft could drop Cortana completely and be fine.

Re: Upcoming changes to Cortana

#6

Post by saagarjha » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 6:12 AM UTC

From today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24013304

Re: Upcoming changes to Cortana

#7

Post by dan1234 » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 6:17 AM UTC

mrweasel wrote: post #5

culturestate wrote: post #3

To clarify, they aren't shutting down Cortana completely - they're ending support for the standalone Cortana apps, which makes sense. What I find more interesting is how they're handling their smart speaker partnership: > ...we’ve worked closely with Harman Kardon to create a Bluetooth-enabled device transition plan that we hope will help ease the impact of this change. Customers who receive a firmware update from Ha…

I think very few use the voice feature, but those who do will hate losing it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out that only a few percent of iPhone users uses Siri. The hype surrounding digital voice assistants have died out. It’s still useful in a few situations, but not having one isn’t as huge a defeat as it would have been 5 years ago. Microsoft could drop Cortana completely and be fine.

The only thing I regularly use Siri for is timers, where it’s genuinely quicker to say “15 minute timer” than it is to open the app.

Re: Upcoming changes to Cortana

#8

Post by evilos » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 6:31 AM UTC

29athrowaway wrote: post #4

justix12 wrote: post #2

Will it still work on my Zune?

People made fun of the Zune but if you look at it objectively it was actually a good product for its time. The timing and the marketing was perhaps not as good as the product itself.

Anytime I see someone mention the Zune it is always followed by what you just said. And then someone does what I am doing now.

Re: Upcoming changes to Cortana

#9

Post by BuckRogers » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 6:33 AM UTC

dan1234 wrote: post #7

mrweasel wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think very few use the voice feature, but those who do will hate losing it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out that only a few percent of iPhone users uses Siri. The hype surrounding digital voice assistants have died out. It’s still useful in a few situations, but not having one isn’t as huge a defeat as it would have been 5 years ago. Microsoft could drop Cortana completely and be fine.

The only thing I regularly use Siri for is timers, where it’s genuinely quicker to say “15 minute timer” than it is to open the app.

Same here. And Alexa (Amazon Cube) is really relegated to muting my TV, lowering/raising the volume, and turning TVs off. If I install some outdoor cameras I might use it to check the front door, back yard or (if I had a child) the baby room. As a Windows user I never found a use for Cortana.

Alexa is the only one that turned out remotely useful for me.

Re: Upcoming changes to Cortana

#10

Post by m463 » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 6:41 AM UTC

culturestate wrote: post #3

To clarify, they aren't shutting down Cortana completely - they're ending support for the standalone Cortana apps, which makes sense. What I find more interesting is how they're handling their smart speaker partnership: > ...we’ve worked closely with Harman Kardon to create a Bluetooth-enabled device transition plan that we hope will help ease the impact of this change. Customers who receive a firmware update from Ha…

> Certainly better than just bricking the thing.

I think we've seen a lot of backlash where companies treat their (disposable) products as disposable, and this is a good thing to see.

Also, companies like Harman Kardon have lifetime relationships with their customers.