In what could be a precursor to things to come, Microsoft has announced plans to end its Cortana voice assistant on iOS and Android on January 31, 2010.
According to a new article on its official website, the Redmond giant has said that the Cortana mobile app will no longer be supported after that date, even for people who already have it on their devices.
The policy will be applicable on Android as well, and the company plans to release an updated version of Microsoft Launcher with its assistant removed.
Cortana will lose her voice on Android and iOS
Since then, the tech giant has confirmed to The Verge that the app will no longer be available on the App Store in Spain , the UK, Australia, Germany, Mexico, China, India and Canada from January 31, 2020.
However, the United States is not on that list, and a company spokesperson explained that the application will continue to be available in the country, starting now.
While the announcement raises serious questions about the future of Cortana, Microsoft tried to dismiss all such concerns in a blog statement over the weekend, saying:
“Cortana is an integral part of our broader vision to bring the power of conversational computing and productivity to all our platforms and devices. To make Cortana as useful as possible, we are integrating Cortana more deeply into your Microsoft 365 productivity apps, and part of this evolution involves ending support for the Cortana mobile app on Android and iOS . ”
The latest decision is not very surprising, given that Cortana has continued to lag behind its three closest competitors: Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri, and Google Assistant.
However, as The Verge pointed out, the software is still an integral part of a number of peripherals, including the company's own Surface Headphones, so it will be interesting to see what this means for those devices in the future.