Microsoft shuts down Cortana, Apple should do the same with Siri

3 years ago by L4sBot to c/technology

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...

ren 209 points 3 years ago

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.

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Gowens 56 points 3 years ago

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.

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SlopppyEngineer 18 points 3 years ago

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".

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Psyduck_world 17 points 3 years ago

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.

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AA5B 2 points 3 years ago

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

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AngryAnusHornets 1 point 3 years ago

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jtk 41 points 3 years ago

"Hey siri, set a timer for 50 minutes" (time my dryer takes). "Timer set for 15 minutes". Every god damn time. I say 49 minutes now.

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ren 14 points 3 years ago

I turned off "hey siri", just hold down the power button now, but absolutely, you. GOT. To. Uh-Nunce-Ee-Ate. Ev-Ver-Ree-Thing. Vare-LEE. Clear-LEE.

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spongebue 7 points 3 years ago

Ee-Nunce-Ee-Ate*

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ren 3 points 3 years ago

lol

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RivenRise 2 points 3 years ago

Just out of curiosity, does siri not have a setting where you can have it get used to your voice? I remember cortana had a whole set up process that had you say a bunch of things. I don't enunciate well but it was able to always pick up my regular voice for stuff.

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dontpanic 7 points 3 years ago

You can just say ‘five zero’ and it’ll be interpreted as 50, I just tried it.

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noodle 4 points 3 years ago

Meanwhile, Google Assistant has no issues with anything like this. You can even set multiple timers. Which, for some inexplicable reason, is not possible in iOS.

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echodot 2 points 3 years ago

But stupidly time is a not synced between your various devices.

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CmdrShepard 2 points 3 years ago

It's not a big deal if you setup a spreadsheet showing when you need each timer to go off and then simply tell Siri to set a timer for the interval between each as they complete one by one. Easy peasy.

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Misconduct -1 points 3 years ago

Yeah but it suuucks for some other things. On iOS I can say cancel my alarm and it does it. Android says something and then opens the clock app to make me do it manually. Also things like saying nevermind change that timer to xx minutes works considerably better on siri imo. They both have their strengths and weaknesses but I personally think Siri is much more optimized with iOS than any assistants ever manage to be on Android.

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PancakeLegend 0 points 3 years ago

My android phone doesn't do that at all. The nest devices definitely don't either.

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lorax 19 points 3 years ago

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.

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supercheesecake 4 points 3 years ago

Shit. I use it to tell me how to spell words.

“Hey Siri, sophistication”

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notthebees 2 points 3 years ago

I can never get Siri to set a timer. Idk why.

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spacedancer 1 point 3 years ago

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notthebees 1 point 3 years ago

I just trigger Siri manually but that's what I ask every time. It fucks it up all the time. I even did the voice training thing.

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dad 1 point 3 years ago

You can say "Hey Siri, 15 minutes please"

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Ducks 86 points 3 years ago

This will make the 3 people who actually used Cortana mildly disgruntled.

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Diprount_Tomato 30 points 3 years ago

I've always hated it as it took a decent amount of my ram without ever having used it

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HughJanus 18 points 3 years ago

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ObviouslyNotBanana 17 points 3 years ago

One person and two bots

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ClassyHatter 5 points 3 years ago

#BotLivesMatter

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Hominine 54 points 3 years ago

..similar to what? SIMILAR TO WHAT!?

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AttackBunny 6 points 3 years ago

Siri.

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quadropiss 52 points 3 years ago

Cortana isn't dead. The brand of it is. Bing ai is almost what Cortana was supposed to be

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realitista 4 points 3 years ago

Siri on the other hand..

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smackjack 3 points 3 years ago

Which heavily relies on Bing ironically enough.

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ilega_dh 51 points 3 years ago

Nah, I use Siri daily for simple tasks. Turning on lights, setting timers, adding things to my groceries list. She’s simple, but perfectly fine for simple tasks.

Please leave her the fuck alone :’)

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Diprount_Tomato -31 points 3 years ago

Do you really want to give Apple access to your house?

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BorgDrone 24 points 3 years ago

For most people, if they want any kind of home automation then they'd have to trust someone, as most people won't be able to deploy and maintain their own system. So now you have 2 options (other than just not automating your home)

Trust a company you already have to trust (since they provide the OS and hardware for your computer, phone, tablet, watch, etc.)
Trust an additional company

So would you rather bet on 1 company not being evil, or 2 companies not being evil?

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GreenCrush 2 points 3 years ago

You can automate your house yourself without the need for a big corp to step in and get access to your home.

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BorgDrone 12 points 3 years ago

Can I? Sure. Can the average consumer? Hell no.

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Diprount_Tomato -8 points 3 years ago

Then what about not automating your house?

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BorgDrone 10 points 3 years ago

Sure, that’s an option. And we don’t need central heating, a fireplace worked fine. We didn’t even need to build houses, we were fine living in caves. And who needs fire anyway, raw meat and berries are more than enough.

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anlumo 5 points 3 years ago

Heresy!

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ilega_dh 4 points 3 years ago

What are they gonna do, turn my lights on? Great prank mr. Tim Apple.

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6xpipe_ 3 points 3 years ago

I use Shortcuts to bridge Siri to my Home Assistant setup. Apple doesn’t control my house.

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o_oli 48 points 3 years ago

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.

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Psythik 5 points 3 years ago

I too actually bothered to read the article.

Cortana is trash. Bing's AI isn't perfect, but at least it's not afraid to say "I don't know", instead of hallucinating some made up bullshit every single time. I mean it still does it, but not nearly as often and you can always check the sources it provides to confirm.

It would be a lot better if it used Google search instead of Bing, however. Often times it can't find the answer that a Google search can. That merger will never happen, though.

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SimplePhysics 46 points 3 years ago

Nice cut, Memmy.

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btonz 41 points 3 years ago

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?

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ElegantBiscuit 7 points 3 years ago

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.

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rikonium 26 points 3 years ago

Please not Siri, it ain’t smart but it does everything I want - the basics and reasonably easily.

I remember Cortana fondly when it was a great blend of Siri and Google Now but naturally it and Windows Phone got left to rot, and made her useless on desktop Windows since they forfeited my pocket.

I tolerated Google Assistant for a bit but ditched Android when Google pushed updates to remove the “okay Google with the screen off” feature from my Moto Z Play and gaslit the internet - stating it was never supported in closed support threads, the chipset didn’t support it and promoted it as a (then new) Pixel 1 feature. I figured Apple wouldn’t remove “Hey Siri” and so far several years in it’s still holding true.

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Ejh3k 3 points 3 years ago

I miss the squeeze to activate Google assistant. I used that all the time, but since I upgraded my pixel and it's no longer an option, I just don't use it ever.

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smackjack 1 point 3 years ago

I don't miss it at all. Every time I put my phone in my cupholder, it would activate, but when I actually needed it to work, it just wouldn't.

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jeremy 3 points 3 years ago

Okay google works fine when the screen is off for me. On S22+ with latest Android

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rikonium 2 points 3 years ago

I know it's still a feature for many, not saying it's still a Pixel exclusive today, this was several years ago

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djsaskdja 24 points 3 years ago

It’s too embedded into their services at the moment. Like you can’t even use CarPlay unless you enable Siri. I like the idea but in contrast they could also just try to make it good lol.

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waitmarks 9 points 3 years ago

not only that, they also sell smart speakers whose only interaction is with siri. Shutting down siri would turn those $300 speakers into paper weights. this article is a really bad take.

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Rai 4 points 3 years ago

Whoa, you need Siri enabled for CarPlay?! I refuse to have any voice things turned on any devices and I’ve been considering upgrading my horribly slow double DIMM radio to a CarPlay radio. I guess I’ll skip that.

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djsaskdja 3 points 3 years ago

Yep. I don’t own a car, but I rented one and wanted to give CarPlay a spin for the first time. It was like please enable Siri. I ended up doing it, but became very annoyed with Siri not long after I brought the car back. Would definitely be an issue for me if I owned the thing instead of renting.

If you do any car shopping, just ask the dealer if you can try it. Would be a good way to verify if what I’m saying is still true.

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Rai 2 points 3 years ago

That’s fair! Honestly I just want a Bluetooth connection that doesn’t have a 1-2 second delay. Maybe FLAC support from flash drives.

My current radio plays MPs from flash drives, but won’t let you CHANGE THE SONG if you’re not stopped. So I use my phone via BT, which has this awful delay when doing anything at all.

With my last car, I used my beloved Bluetooth to 3.5mm adapter, which connects instantly, has no delay, and sounds magnificent. I would happily do with this car… BUT THE RADIO DOESN’T HAVE A GOT DANG 3.5MM JACK.

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djsaskdja 1 point 3 years ago

I think the car I rented could do Bluetooth audio without using CarPlay. I don’t remember how good/bad the delay was though.

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TrickDacy -1 points 3 years ago

I am genuinely curious.. how could it possibly matter if there is a small delay on audio playback?

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thesohoriots 3 points 3 years ago

I am also reasonably sure — not 100%, but reasonably — that Siri has something to do with the transcription process for visual voicemail.

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GenderNeutralBro 23 points 3 years ago

I don't understand why the author sees AI as an alternative to Siri rather than a potential upgrade.

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TenderfootGungi 21 points 3 years ago

No. Siri is useful, especially when you can’t type. I use Siri a lot on my bike. Apple just needs to fix Siri.

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dylanTheDeveloper 17 points 3 years ago

Should've killed Cortana in Halo 4

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Orionza 17 points 3 years ago

I shut off asuch of Cortana on my desktop as I could. Not a wanted feature.

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marmarama 15 points 3 years ago

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.

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ris 8 points 3 years ago

Windows copilot . It’s available for testing in canary builds. And it kinda sucks even worse than Cortana did.

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kescusay 6 points 3 years ago

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.

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BagelEmbezzler 2 points 3 years ago

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

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AliasWyvernspur 10 points 3 years ago

A counterpoint: https://youtu.be/l9P7rp-6pSg

Found from: https://old.lemmy.world/post/2629438

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PipedLinkBot 2 points 3 years ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/l9P7rp-6pSg

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Chickenstalker 9 points 3 years ago

M$ was banking on horny teenagers to use Cortana. Thing is, they forgot the sexy bits.

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Ghostalmedia 8 points 3 years ago

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.

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praxi 7 points 3 years ago

God no. I use it when I can’t reach the phone. It isn’t perfect, but it still is valuable

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rockrit 4 points 3 years ago

I’m kinda glad it’s over. Cortana killed the very useful voice commands on Xbox (alongside the size and price of the Kinect).

Instead of “Xbox On” you had to actually instruct Cortana to turn it on. The same for the quick screenshot or changing the channel on TV or whatever. It was so good, my whole family was using it and this was in 2014ish when voice control was still fairly new. Cortana ruined all of that for a virtual assistant that barely worked and made Siri look like AI.

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pewgar_seemsimandroid 3 points 3 years ago

aw shucks i wanted to see how sh*t cortana was

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Mereo 3 points 3 years ago

Not the same thing. Even though Siri is not great, I still use it for basic tasks.

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_haha_oh_wow_ 3 points 3 years ago

I use my Google assistant all the time...

...mostly to set timers.

Great for it though!

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FireWire400 3 points 3 years ago

I think most people saw that coming, Microsoft effectively sealed Cortana's fate when they relegated it to a standalone app

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