With the launch of the Hound beta having already started and invites being sent out to users who request one, Android device owners have two extremely capable personal assistant apps at their disposal, with the announcement of Microsoft’s Cortana coming to Android at some point in the future. Microsoft making Cortana available for Android is a small surprise, but could also be considered an expected move as the company has made much of their software available on Android over the last year, with Cortana seeking to continue that expansion. The only thing is that Microsoft hadn’t announced any details about an exact date with the initial announcement, but as of today they have locked down a more definitive timeframe for Android users.
According to a Windows Blog post, Microsoft will be launching a beta of the Cortana personal assistant app for Android devices in July, which means users will soon get their chance to see how it stacks up to the competition. This is good news for anyone who owns an Android smartphone or tablet but was interested to check out Microsoft’s personal assistant offering, however, Microsoft elaborates that Cortana will work in tandem with Windows 10 PCs and the recently announced app for Xbox One, so it won’t be quite as powerful of a standalone app like it is for Microsoft’s own platforms.
As an example, you could set a reminder for something using the Cortana Android app and you could receive that reminder on either the Windows 10 PC or Xbox One when it gets to around the time of the reminder you set. Microsoft has confirmed that it won’t be as powerful as the app for the other systems, but it will still have some functionality. Users should also be able to ask it questions and receive answers for things like weather, and of course to set reminders, but they were quiet on any other specific details or features the app might carry. Perhaps they’ll open up with more details closer to the launch of the beta, or perhaps users will just have to wait until they can install the beta to check things out for themselves.