Earlier this year, Microsoft signed a deal with Cyanogen to bring its apps to appear on Cyanogen OS devices. Now, a recent report claims that Cyanogen will collaborate with Microsoft for a tight Cortana integration with Cyanogen OS.
Cortana is already in Windows Phone 8.1, Windows 10, and Windows 10 Mobile and even as a beta app in Android. While Cortana is available as an Android app, Google’s control over the platform prevents Cortana from enjoying the same level of deep platform connectedness as it has on Windows Phone. This is why you cannot say “Hey, Cortana” on Android the same way you can with “OK, Google”.
To overcome the kind of limitation enforced by Google, Kirt McMaster, the co-founder and CEO of Cyanogen, said that his company is working with Microsoft to add Cortana in the Android-based Cyanogen OS.
When Apple launched Apple Music at WWDC, they showed the Siri integration with Apple Music. Siri doesn’t power Spotify like that so we can do these kind of things with for example, integration of Microsoft’s Cortana into the OS enabling natural language to power Spotify and other services.
Kirt McMaster also added that they would not bring Cortana integration in the form of an app, as the current Android beta.
Natural language coupled with intelligence is very important but as an application it doesn’t really (sic) work because you need to be embedded into the framework of the OS because that is where you get all the signal from the services that makes that intelligence smarter.
Exactly how this might work is not yet clear, but McMaster is adamant that the future of Cyanogen OS is in giving users alternatives to Google products and services, and this partnership with Microsoft should help the company do just that.
Even with this apparent partnership between Cyanogen and Microsoft, Kirt McMaster still feels that Windows Phone has been a failure so far, saying, “people are not buying Windows phones, it’s as simple as that.” As of now, there is no ETA on Cortana integration with Cyanogen OS, but we imagine we will be hearing a lot more about this effort soon.
Source:Â International Business Times
