Wow. Seriously. The fanboy inside me wishes this to be true and would consider jumping to Windows Phone just for this feature. If I could have set my alarm and say, “Cortana. Wake me… when you need me.” in my best Master Chief voice that would be made of so much win. I have also heard and read rumours that she might have a presence on Xbox One as well as a Siri like feature and possible a visible element of the sprite herself. Many a young man rejoice to see blue ass and boobs while navigating his Xbox dashboard.
Artist rendition.
Article sourced from IGN.com:
“Rumors began circulating last year that Microsoft was working on Cortana–a competitor to Apple’s digital assistant Siri. A new report from The Verge offers leaked images of the interface, which appears to show Cortana as a circular animation.
Image Source: The Verge
Sources say Cortana will respond to audio queries from Windows Phone users, looking up information via web search. Cortana will also offer to save personal data–contacts, searches, flight times–to a Notebook for later retrieval. And yes, you can customize how Cortana addresses you, so go ahead Master Chief.
Microsoft invested a substantial amount of money into Foursquare recently, and by all indications, it would seem Cortana will take advantage of the location-based service. The Windows Phone digital assistant could make an appearance during Microsoft’s Build conference in April.”
Again this is just such a brilliant move by Microsoft to incorporate such a character to make a Siri like companion to Windows Phones. It’s a marketing no brainer as Microsoft have really been trying to unify all their devices much in the like of Apple and iOS. I heard through the grapevine that the voice actor for Cortana has recently been noted to be currently doing voice work for Microsoft. Now whether that’s got something to do with an upcoming Halo game I’m not certain but it makes me think.
Saying all this I have invested a lot into the Apple Ecosystem with iPhone, iPad, AppleTV, iMac and all the iOS apps over the years. It would have to be something quite surmountable to get me to drop all that and move to a Windows Ecosystem. I’m one of a few friends of mine that actually like the MetroOS on Windows 8 and their Surface tablets, I do like what they’re trying to do. I’ve heard that the Windows app store has caught up over the last two years so I might take a look into it but there are a lot of users out there that have already invested heavily like myself into other platforms that the sense of moving to something else is just so daunting.
However my question stands: What can Windows give me that I don’t already have with Apple and is there enough to sway me and others like me?
Maybe seeing this is enough?