Microsoft shuts down Cortana, Apple should do the same with Siri::Cortana is Microsoft’s virtual assistant, which was introduced in 2014 back when Windows Phone was still a thing. Similar to…
nah
Siri, while not great, handles timers, reminders, and dumbshit like that just fine without typing. I have yet to find another good use for these assistants.
Yep. I’ve used my Google assistant for timers, alarms, weather, and music. Anything more complex is a headache. Even music is half the time.
Asking the thing to handle music in another language was terrible. Asking it to play a French song to an assistent set in English gives stupid results for example. “Que sera, sera” becomes “Oh Sarah”.
This! I live in Taiwan, but 99% of my entertainment is from the US. I can’t use Any of these assistants in English otherwise street names or other Mandarin stuff won’t work, but if I use Mandarin assistants none of my music or shows works.
Can you use two? I use both Siri with push to talk from my Watch and Alexa through Echo dot, whichever is convenient. Either one will do times, music, lights, etc
If you took a similar approach, you might use one with each language
This is actually a great idea!
deleted by creator
Agreed. I find myself using Siri on walks via AirPods quite a bit. Siri what’s the weather going to be like tonight . Siri what’s in my calendar tomorrow. Siri what’s the latest news. (That opens up podcast app and plays local news I love it. ). Siri let me know when it’s 12:30. I just wish it got better at answering simple questions. A few articles mentioned Apple started looking at incorporating a GPT style AI with Siri.
Microsoft isn’t giving up on assistants (as per the article), its just going down a different route, more AI focused. This is sensible because Cortana is a flop, nobody uses it, there is no need to leave it running.
I’m certain Apple has the same plans around AI, however people still use Siri all the time. It’s not a flop, so it may as well stay running as more and more AI works its way over to it or its replacement.
It’s really weird to me that anyone would want it shut down when it’s so easy to just not use it.
Nice cut, Memmy.
Cortana isn’t dead. The brand of it is. Bing ai is almost what Cortana was supposed to be
This article sounds like it was written by someone who barely understands what a voice assistant is, let alone how a corporation works. Very dumb. Is 9to5 using GPT instead of paying journalists?
Not to mention that microsoft is definitely going to replace it with bing powered by chatgpt. They probably found that it was easier starting bing from the ground up now than having to deal with whatever has been shoved into cortana’s code over the years.
No. Siri is useful, especially when you can’t type. I use Siri a lot on my bike. Apple just needs to fix Siri.
I shut off asuch of Cortana on my desktop as I could. Not a wanted feature.
Should’ve killed Cortana in Halo 4
I can only imagine they’re shutting it down to replace it with something with different branding, based on an LLM. Microsoft has gone all-in on LLMs and I’m sure they’d love some of that virtual assistant action if they were able to differentiate themselves.
Windows copilot . It’s available for testing in canary builds. And it kinda sucks even worse than Cortana did.
I have no idea why they’re doing this. LLMs are a useful tool in certain areas, but they’re by no means ready as the sort of universal assistant tool Microsoft is trying to position them as.
I use GitHub Copilot to make writing boilerplate code faster and easier, and it works really well for that, but I can’t see any other computing tasks I engage in regularly benefiting from an AI assistant trying to get all up in my business.
I get why a lay person would misunderstand the capabilities of LLMs. They sound like a thinking person should sound, so they treat it like it’s coming from a thinking person.
But how are all the (presumably) tech-literate Microsoft employees also confused by this? Anyone paying even a little attention should have seen numerous instances of LLMs confidently asserting “facts” that they pulled out of their asses. They are not the right tool for most of the stuff people use a voice/OS assistant for.
I have to assume it’s the business guys up top hearing the “AI” buzzword and getting horny for capitalism but god damn
A counterpoint: https://youtu.be/l9P7rp-6pSg
Found from: https://old.lemmy.world/post/2629438
M$ was banking on horny teenagers to use Cortana. Thing is, they forgot the sexy bits.
God no. I use it when I can’t reach the phone. It isn’t perfect, but it still is valuable
Apple can’t kill Siri. Too many of its solutions rely on voice as the dominant input method. Accessibility for Mac / iOS, HomePod, CarPlay, Apple Watch, Vision Pro, AirPods, etc.
Also, Siri has about a 3rd of the voice assistant market, Cortana use was way below that.
I use my Google assistant all the time…
…mostly to set timers.
Great for it though!
I think most people saw that coming, Microsoft effectively sealed Cortana’s fate when they relegated it to a standalone app
