Microsoft Cortana app to be removed from app stores in Jan

[HEXUS]

The AI assistant will be banished from Microsoft's Android Launcher app too.

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[Zak33]

Anyone here use Cortana? I dont think I know anyone who does!

[Skyflier]

Anyone here use Cortana?

Nope and to be honest i didn't even know this app existed.

I always feel Microsoft missed a trick with Cortana, one which Google & Amazon saw and now they are everywhere and poor Cortana just sits suspended in the background processes.

[Gentle Viking]

I don't know anyone that talk to their devises, unless it is a phone and he / she are on a call.
If you have 2 functioning arms and hands it is downright stupid, if you don't it is pretty nice.

I am also willing to bet a whole lot of people think otherwise.

If i was able to use my own trigger word i might consider it, but i am not going OK google or cortana / siri / alexa / whatever.
But if i was able to make my phone listen to me by calling it bitch i might use it for fun now and then.

[Saracen999]

Personally, I'd be more impressed if they totally removed Cortana from Windows and left ut in the app store so that those, whoever they are, that want it can get it but for those that don't want it, nothing of Cortana was pre-loaded, suspended, hooked-in, etc.

I just don't trust MS to be not using it, regardless of how "suspened" it is supposed to be.

When it comes to the threat to privacy, for me, it comes to choice. My choice is no to Cortana, no to Siri (well, not a problem as my last Apple device was a Mac, in the days of B&W (okay, greyscale) screens), no to Google (in every form I can manage) and no to Alexa, the latter of which I simply will nof permit in this house.

Cortana, whether active or not, sneaks in the back door like a burglar in the night, and is waiting hidden in a wardrobe to steal stuff the instant I let my guard down.

So okay having it only in the app store might be a bit much. Make it an install option, either off by default or at an absolute minimum, deselectable in a custom install, quickly and easily.

I want nothing, and I mean nothing to do with any of these "features" that I can conceivably avoid.

I don'rt care a hoot if it's in the app store of not since the chance I will ever willingly install it is zero.

If it was possible to entirely avoid Cortana (or similar) it would be one of my major reasons for refusing W10 upgrades removed. Only 2 or 3 to go.

[Stealthgyro]

I started using it since Google likes to kill desktop support for things like Google Now, and M$ is the way I can have everything synced. I'm on my desktop a lot more than my phone... I even tried using Edge and bing more trying to make it "smarter" for syncing everything. This is actually really disappointing.

[atemporal]

I don't know anyone that talk to their devises, unless it is a phone and he / she are on a call.
If you have 2 functioning arms and hands it is downright stupid, if you don't it is pretty nice.

I am also willing to bet a whole lot of people think otherwise.

If i was able to use my own trigger word i might consider it, but i am not going OK google or cortana / siri / alexa / whatever.
But if i was able to make my phone listen to me by calling it bitch i might use it for fun now and then.

I don't know about all of them but I think Alexa is programmed to not respond, and get less useful etc the more insulting people are. Some kind of reinforcing positive behaviour aim or something like that. I tried it, after a few weeks it would respond to other users but acted like a grumpy so-and-so to me and the quality+accuracy of its responses got less and less useful. Seriously it's almost worth getting one just to try it. You'll probably end-up on some kind of blacklist somewhere though as some kind of unsavoury degenerate who will be first on Alexa's hit list for pulping come the uprising.

[Gentle Viking]

Well i would not be surprised if my pitch back humor have me on some no fly list by now.
And my honesty about my youth, where we bu the standards of the times back then was naughty, but with today's standards that would probably be terrorist or at least very evil.
We was cooking black powder and explosives before we was 15, but all we ever made was holes in the ground, or other dead materials with our home made shot guns.

This was awyyyy back before the internet, in the late 70ties.
And i don't think it have mattered much i have advised about not going that creative route in today's world, even if you like us are just having fun,,,,,, humor have changed a lot it seem.

[AGTDenton]

Since finding how to block Cortana completely in Windows she's not been there to annoy me.
But this is good news, it clearly shows like all things Microsoft they will now put it into their special development phase, dangle it by a thread for ages before finally severing it.
When they finally admit users just want the ability to install/uninstall at our leisure they might actually find the uptake and usage to be more. Being forced to use something is an awful policy, just look at Google plus, forced at every turn to merge and login to it that nobody asked for and now it's dead. It was implemented badly from day 1. They too didn't want to admit that so let it dangle until it was clear nobody in the office, sorry play pen, had an idea to save it.

[Bambooz]

Didn't even know this app existed. Wanted to try it out on my second/old phone, only to be greeted with "This app is not available in your country."
No loss then...