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Hey Siri, download Cortana to my iPhone later today, would you?

Microsoft has been offering the iOS version of its intelligent assistant Cortana as a small-scale beta since last month, and it’s now ready to go live. Cortana is available on the App Store now.

Don’t expect it to match Siri for functionality, however – with Siri deeply embedded into iOS and Cortana a mere app, it will have limited capabilities, but you can at least see how it compares when it comes to answering questions …

You’ll need to be running iOS 8 or later, and it will initially be available only in the U.S. and China.

Siri in the meantime just learned a new trick: as of yesterday, it can play Apple Music on the new Apple TV.

Photo: Windows Central

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Comments

  1. Doug Aalseth - 8 years ago

    My favorit Siri Moment. I had the radio playing on my iPad and got a call. “Siri, Shut Up!” turned off the playback.

    • mashdots - 8 years ago

      I like the cut of your jib.

    • thefferon2013 - 8 years ago

      I once needed to get out of Siri listening mode, but nothing worked. Finally, in frustration I yelled, “Siri, get lost!”. She said, “I hope we can still be friends,” and then all the colors on my iPad got inverted. I had to go into Settings to get them back to normal.

  2. thefferon2013 - 8 years ago

    LOL Love the title. Genius.

  3. Louis Veillette - 8 years ago

    Try “Siri, uninstall yourself ” (to save some precious storage space) and see how it goes :)

    • rnc - 8 years ago

      What’s the problem with Siri?

      Like Cortana or Google Now are any better…

      • Louis Veillette - 8 years ago

        Siri is really bad as well. And it’s beyond bad in other langages. I feel it’s even worse with Siri, since it’s a technology that has many years of development ahead of Cortana. But my main gripe about Siri is that, unlike Cortana (on iOS at least), it can’t be uninstalled, saving precious space on the iOS devices of those who feel they’d rather use it for something else. So it’s triple bad in the way, that we are forced to use it, even though we purchased our devices and should be able to use it as we see fit.

  4. Drew (@gettysburg11s) - 8 years ago

    Cortana on iOS is quite horrible. I installed it on my 6s, and it had a really hard time understanding me. I am not sure what this is supposed to be for. Siri works great at this point. Why use anything else?

    • Jason Clishe (@JClishe) - 8 years ago

      You’re right, on iOS it’s difficult to make an argument to use Cortana since Apple doesn’t allow it to have the kind of access that Siri has. However, I use both Windows Phone and iPhone and Cortana on Windows Phone is significantly better then Siri on iPhone. It’s a shame Cortana can’t be as good on iPhone because I’d much rather use instead of Siri.

    • rafalb177 - 8 years ago

      We all know Microsoft quality.

      • Aunty T (@AuntyTroll) - 8 years ago

        I’m no Microsoft lover, but saying things like that when Apple for the last couple of years have started to go downhill quality wise is pretty ironic.

    • rnc - 8 years ago

      Cortana is horrible everywhere.

  5. chrrup - 8 years ago

    Why would Cortana need my location, even when the app isn’t active? Is this just some scam to be able to track me better?

  6. rafalb177 - 8 years ago

    Why would you install a big bug on your iPhone?

  7. Gareth (@gaz8080) - 8 years ago

    “The item you’ve requested is not currently available in the UK Store.”

    • Ben Lovejoy - 8 years ago

      “You’ll need to be running iOS 8 or later, and it will initially be available only in the U.S. and China.”

Author

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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