We all know about the partnership between Cyanogen and Microsoft. Reportedly, Microsoft partnered with the company to expand the reach of its apps. Well, we are now seeing fruits of the partnership. Kirk McMaster, CEO and Co-founder of Cyanogen has revealed that the next major Cyanogen OS version will bring Cortana integration.
Cyanogen has time and again mentioned that they want to take Android away from Google by using alternatives to Google’s apps and they have achieved that by partnering with Microsoft. Microsoft and Cyanogen had previously announced that Cyanogen OS will come with Microsoft apps like OneDrive, OneNote pre-installed and now, the company will be integrating the Cortana voice assistant right into the framework of the OS.
Google already has its Google Now assistant but apparently, Cyanogen is going to replace it with Microsoft’s Cortana digital assistant. Currently, Cortana is available on Android as a beta but since it’s a just another app, there’s not much it can do but once it is baked right in the OS, we can imagine it being a lot more useful.
McMaster revealed this in an interview with IB Times. He said, “Natural language coupled with intelligence is very important but as an application it doesn’t rally (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.”
It is important to note here that McMaster has mentioned Cyanogen OS and not CyanogenMod, so chances are Cortana will only be baked into Cyanogen OS only. If that’s the case, you will able to enjoy Cortana’s deep integration on Android only in Cyanogen OS smartphones like the YU devices. We will have to wait for the next Cyanogen OS release to find out how well Cortana works with Android. Till then, tell us your favourite virtual assistant, is it Siri, Google Now or Cortana?
