6 ms·

Google does the same thing with Android. Although they don't use a browser, we have no way to change the search tool in "ok google" feature. If some one wants t

Google does the same thing with Android. Although they don't use a browser, we have no way to change the search tool in "ok google" feature. If some one wants to replace Cortana with some other product and if Windows doesn't allow, that is a problem. Using bing will eventually improve Cortana and Microsoft should be able to do that.

Cyph0n 10y ago
No, no, Google is infallible. Besides, Microsoft is betraying us after they open sourced several of their most popular libraries and toolkits. They just can't have it both ways. /sarcasm
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
ivanca 10y ago
I don't believe that's a good analogy unless Cortana is renamed "Bing", because then the user expectation of saying "OK Bing" has a more clear intent about using Bing search engine only.
- cptskippy 10y ago
  I don't think most users will know or care.
cptskippy 10y ago
Although they don't use a browser That's debatable. Android WebView is a system component powered by Chrome - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.webview&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Only on Android 4.4 onwards. http://developer.android.com/guide/webapps/migrating.html http://developer.android.com/guide/webapps/migrating.html Which leaves out 26.2% of Android users: http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html
ebbv 10y ago
Maybe I'm wrong but I still take the view that defaulting to your own service is fine, but locking it to your own service is bad. Google and Microsoft are both wrong in this case, and you know the old saying your mom taught you; two wrongs don't make a right.
tehabe 10y ago
On Android 6 you can change the app for Assist and voice input to Cortana for example. You can even turn it off completely.
- ewzimm 10y ago
  In the exact same way, you can change the app you use for searches on Windows to Google Now, even disable Cortana completely.
  - zacklytle 10y ago
    Actually the latest insider build (14332) removes all options to disable Cortana. Before you had to opt-in with "get to know me", now it's on at first boot and can't be turned off.
    - seanp2k2 10y ago
      It's no longer possible to rid Windows 10 of Cortana without breaking the start menu and search bar: http://superuser.com/questions/949569/can-i-completely-disable-cortana-on-windows-10 http://superuser.com/questions/949569/can-i-completely-disab... I recently tried to remove Cortana, because I personally find voice search worse than useless. I don't want my start menu searches being sent to MSFT. SteamOS for gaming can't come soon enough.
TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
In both Google and Microsoft's case this could be considered anti-competitive behaviour. Especially for Microsoft, who control the entire PC market.
- tracker1 10y ago
  I don't know that you could make that argument today... if you look at PC sales overall, combined with the amount of developer mindshare in terms of Linux and OSX, and those not upgrading to the latest windows, combined with phones, tablets, etc... it's not what it used to be. Although I don't necessarily agree with it, I do believe that these decisions are probably less about locking and more about delivering the best user experience possible. I use OSX more these days (rMBP for work, and personal laptops) and Ubuntu/Unity (htpc) more than my Windows 10 pro desktop, and on that I've disabled Cortana. and use Chrome as my main browser. Although it's good to be skeptical, I don't think there's much conspiracy here.
bla2 10y ago
You can use a different launcher. Now is just a feature of Google's launcher, right? It doesn't have deep system integration.
- kibwen 10y ago
  On my Android phone, it is AFAICT impossible to remove the Google-branded search bar from the top of every page of the "desktop" (or whatever we call the basic app launcher screen on phones). On my Windows 10 computer, it is trivial to remove Cortana from my taskbar.
  - tracker1 10y ago
    If you bought a phone that's so locked down, you can't install a different launcher, I am sorry. It's actually really sad how locked down some android devices are, and part of why I do extra research when buying my phones... Working backwards... Nexus 6P OnePlus One Nexus 4 Some samsung POC Original G1 (nokia pre-smart phones) Even the samsung was able to install a 3rd party build of Cyanogenmod (checked before buying it)... every phone since the G1 has been android, and until the Nexus 4 I ran cyanogenmod... the N4, OPO and N6p are all running stock, since they include wifi hotspot in the box.
  - delecti 10y ago
    I've never heard of a device that wouldn't even let you install a different launcher. You are aware that your "desktop" is a separate app right? And like your keyboard, you can install replacements. I use this [1] launcher and it lets me turn off that Google search bar. I don't mean to be condescending, but either you have an incredibly locked down device, more so than I've ever heard of, or you're just understandably unaware of that aspect of Android. [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.adwfreak.launcher https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.adwfreak.l...
    - kibwen 10y ago
      Thanks for the link! I honestly had no idea that such a thing even existed, and I spent a long time trying to figure out a way to just drag the search bar off the screen like any other widget. Though still sort of a shame that I have to install and trust yet another third-party app just to do such a basic operation (I suppose it's some consolation that Android at least ships with a flashlight app these days).
kllrnohj 10y ago
If you tap on a search result in "ok google" it'll launch in your default browser, not necessarily chrome. The forced launch into Edge is the only kinda suspect thing here. Of course the voice goes through each companies respective search engines, they kinda have to to work unless there's some standard for voice queries I'm not aware of. But forcing it to launch in Edge is questionable since there's nothing special there.
- WorldMaker 10y ago
  Edge already has Cortana-specific browser chrome. (Some restaurant pages, for example, will light up Cortana's halo in the address bar and clicking that will open a Cortana sidebar full of action cards like "Create a Reservation".) It's not surprising that the plans are to continue adding Cortana functionality in Edge, and to work to make that hand-off between "Taskbar Cortana" and "Edge Cortana" as seamless as possible. Theoretically they could probably leverage extensions to other browsers, but making sure users had those extensions installed and handing off to those extensions would presumably be A) a bunch of additional work for the teams involved, and B) threaten to show a bunch of seams between the application boundaries, hurting the suspension of disbelief that Cortana is an "individual" working in our favor, potentially weakening Cortana in the public's eyes.
  - kllrnohj 10y ago
    So this is ActiveX v2 then? It's not just loading a URL with plain html5 on the other end?
    - jimbobimbo 10y ago
      If it doesn't require restaurant pages implement something on their end - no, it's not "ActiveX v2".
    - WorldMaker 10y ago
      If anything it's most closely akin to the old Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox Sidebar efforts: http://edmullen.net/mozilla/moz_sidebar.php http://edmullen.net/mozilla/moz_sidebar.php http://edmullen.net/mozilla/images/moz_shot_05.jpg http://edmullen.net/mozilla/images/moz_shot_05.jpg It's loading HTML (and maybe XAML, like Firefox allowed XUL) into a sidebar that may interact with the page it's pulled up alongside.
xd1936 10y ago
To be fair... You're speaking the words "OK Google", to the Google app. It wouldn't really make a ton of sense for that to be powered by a different search engine.

Cyph0n 10y ago

No, no, Google is infallible. Besides, Microsoft is betraying us after they open sourced several of their most popular libraries and toolkits. They just can't have it both ways. /sarcasm

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

ivanca 10y ago

I don't believe that's a good analogy unless Cortana is renamed "Bing", because then the user expectation of saying "OK Bing" has a more clear intent about using Bing search engine only.

cptskippy 10y ago
I don't think most users will know or care.

cptskippy 10y ago

Although they don't use a browser That's debatable. Android WebView is a system component powered by Chrome - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.webview&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...

pjmlp 10y ago
Only on Android 4.4 onwards. http://developer.android.com/guide/webapps/migrating.html http://developer.android.com/guide/webapps/migrating.html Which leaves out 26.2% of Android users: http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html

ebbv 10y ago

Maybe I'm wrong but I still take the view that defaulting to your own service is fine, but locking it to your own service is bad. Google and Microsoft are both wrong in this case, and you know the old saying your mom taught you; two wrongs don't make a right.

tehabe 10y ago

On Android 6 you can change the app for Assist and voice input to Cortana for example. You can even turn it off completely.

ewzimm 10y ago
In the exact same way, you can change the app you use for searches on Windows to Google Now, even disable Cortana completely.
- zacklytle 10y ago
  Actually the latest insider build (14332) removes all options to disable Cortana. Before you had to opt-in with "get to know me", now it's on at first boot and can't be turned off.
  - seanp2k2 10y ago
    It's no longer possible to rid Windows 10 of Cortana without breaking the start menu and search bar: http://superuser.com/questions/949569/can-i-completely-disable-cortana-on-windows-10 http://superuser.com/questions/949569/can-i-completely-disab... I recently tried to remove Cortana, because I personally find voice search worse than useless. I don't want my start menu searches being sent to MSFT. SteamOS for gaming can't come soon enough.

TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago

In both Google and Microsoft's case this could be considered anti-competitive behaviour. Especially for Microsoft, who control the entire PC market.

tracker1 10y ago
I don't know that you could make that argument today... if you look at PC sales overall, combined with the amount of developer mindshare in terms of Linux and OSX, and those not upgrading to the latest windows, combined with phones, tablets, etc... it's not what it used to be. Although I don't necessarily agree with it, I do believe that these decisions are probably less about locking and more about delivering the best user experience possible. I use OSX more these days (rMBP for work, and personal laptops) and Ubuntu/Unity (htpc) more than my Windows 10 pro desktop, and on that I've disabled Cortana. and use Chrome as my main browser. Although it's good to be skeptical, I don't think there's much conspiracy here.

bla2 10y ago

You can use a different launcher. Now is just a feature of Google's launcher, right? It doesn't have deep system integration.

kibwen 10y ago
On my Android phone, it is AFAICT impossible to remove the Google-branded search bar from the top of every page of the "desktop" (or whatever we call the basic app launcher screen on phones). On my Windows 10 computer, it is trivial to remove Cortana from my taskbar.
- tracker1 10y ago
  If you bought a phone that's so locked down, you can't install a different launcher, I am sorry. It's actually really sad how locked down some android devices are, and part of why I do extra research when buying my phones... Working backwards... Nexus 6P OnePlus One Nexus 4 Some samsung POC Original G1 (nokia pre-smart phones) Even the samsung was able to install a 3rd party build of Cyanogenmod (checked before buying it)... every phone since the G1 has been android, and until the Nexus 4 I ran cyanogenmod... the N4, OPO and N6p are all running stock, since they include wifi hotspot in the box.
- delecti 10y ago
  I've never heard of a device that wouldn't even let you install a different launcher. You are aware that your "desktop" is a separate app right? And like your keyboard, you can install replacements. I use this [1] launcher and it lets me turn off that Google search bar. I don't mean to be condescending, but either you have an incredibly locked down device, more so than I've ever heard of, or you're just understandably unaware of that aspect of Android. [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.adwfreak.launcher https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.adwfreak.l...
  - kibwen 10y ago
    Thanks for the link! I honestly had no idea that such a thing even existed, and I spent a long time trying to figure out a way to just drag the search bar off the screen like any other widget. Though still sort of a shame that I have to install and trust yet another third-party app just to do such a basic operation (I suppose it's some consolation that Android at least ships with a flashlight app these days).

kllrnohj 10y ago

If you tap on a search result in "ok google" it'll launch in your default browser, not necessarily chrome. The forced launch into Edge is the only kinda suspect thing here. Of course the voice goes through each companies respective search engines, they kinda have to to work unless there's some standard for voice queries I'm not aware of. But forcing it to launch in Edge is questionable since there's nothing special there.

WorldMaker 10y ago
Edge already has Cortana-specific browser chrome. (Some restaurant pages, for example, will light up Cortana's halo in the address bar and clicking that will open a Cortana sidebar full of action cards like "Create a Reservation".) It's not surprising that the plans are to continue adding Cortana functionality in Edge, and to work to make that hand-off between "Taskbar Cortana" and "Edge Cortana" as seamless as possible. Theoretically they could probably leverage extensions to other browsers, but making sure users had those extensions installed and handing off to those extensions would presumably be A) a bunch of additional work for the teams involved, and B) threaten to show a bunch of seams between the application boundaries, hurting the suspension of disbelief that Cortana is an "individual" working in our favor, potentially weakening Cortana in the public's eyes.
- kllrnohj 10y ago
  So this is ActiveX v2 then? It's not just loading a URL with plain html5 on the other end?
  - jimbobimbo 10y ago
    If it doesn't require restaurant pages implement something on their end - no, it's not "ActiveX v2".
  - WorldMaker 10y ago
    If anything it's most closely akin to the old Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox Sidebar efforts: http://edmullen.net/mozilla/moz_sidebar.php http://edmullen.net/mozilla/moz_sidebar.php http://edmullen.net/mozilla/images/moz_shot_05.jpg http://edmullen.net/mozilla/images/moz_shot_05.jpg It's loading HTML (and maybe XAML, like Firefox allowed XUL) into a sidebar that may interact with the page it's pulled up alongside.

xd1936 10y ago

To be fair... You're speaking the words "OK Google", to the Google app. It wouldn't really make a ton of sense for that to be powered by a different search engine.