Microsoft Considers Bringing Cortana Personal Assistant to iOS & Android

Microsoft has wont to arrive late to parties: following Siri’s introduction nearly three years ago, Redmond in April of this year has finally gotten around to unveiling a personal assistant of its own, Cortana, at the Build Developer Conference in San Francisco.

And it looks like that Microsoft is considering the idea of bringing its new Cortana personal assistant to iOS and Android, reports SearchEngineLand.

Marcus Ash, a Windows Phone Group Program Manager, discussed the idea at the SMX Advanced conference in Seattle. The company wants Cortana to be ‘pervasive’ not just at a country/geographic level but at a tech level across different devices and perhaps different platforms.

We want to scale Cortana internationally and across devices. The Android/iOS question is interesting. We’re asking, would Cortana be as effective if she didn’t have access to the details on your phone? We’re still trying to get Cortana adopted on Windows Phone and figure out what it wants to become there. But we’re actively talking about this.

When discussing the impact of Cortana, Ash said he didn’t think Cortana would mean the death of the search box.

“I can’t imagine that,” Ash said. “The search box is what people know. That’s why we’re trying to bring [it and Cortana] together. The declarative intent of traditional search saves us so much effort — if you tell us what your interest are via search, Cortana gets so much better. We think Cortana makes you more likely to search, it doesn’t replace search.”

Be that as it may, the execs said Microsoft wants Cortana to be “pervasive” and hinted she could be brought not only to iOS/Android, but to the desktop and into vehicles and other venues, too.

Cortana will make its debut as part of the impending Windows Phone 8.1 launch. As for the technical difficulties the executives briefly touched on, a theoretical iOS build of Cortana could easily access iPhone contacts, calendar items, reminders, microphone, location and photos (with user permission), just like any other third-party iOS app can.

The biggest hurdle to Cortana’s adoption on iOS would be lack of deep system integration. Having been built deep into the bowels of the operating system, Siri is accessible anywhere with a long-press of the Home button.