Cortana Will Be Removed From the Microsoft Launcher by the End of April

• Microsoft has mentioned in a blog post today that it will stop offering the Cortana voice assistant with the Microsoft Launcher on Android starting in April.
• This comes after Cortana was sidelined from Android last year.
• Microsoft has reaffirmed that it will continue to support and develop Cortana with the Windows 10 platform.

Microsoft has invested quite a bit of time and research into Cortana, its dedicated voice assistant which was provided with its Windows computers as well as Windows Phone smartphones. Subsequently, Microsoft also made it available for Android users and also via its custom Microsoft Launcher app for Android. Well, Microsoft has now announced that its taking Cortana out of the Microsoft Launcher, thus marking its exit from Android.

Around last year, it was reported that the company was looking to remove Cortana Voice Assistant from the Google Play Store. The company mentioned in a blog post that Cortana services will be removed from the Microsoft Launcher by the end of April, suggesting that users who are used to Cortana can continue using it with Launcher for another month or so. In the blog post, Microsoft also laid down its plans for Cortana and how it will shift its focus towards improving and developing its services with Windows 10.

“As part of Cortana’s evolution into a personal productivity assistant in Microsoft 365, you’ll see some changes in how Cortana works in the latest version of Windows 10. We’ve tightened access to Cortana so that you must be securely logged in with your work or school account or your Microsoft account before using Cortana and some consumer skills including music connected home and third-party skills will no longer be available in the updated Cortana experience in Windows 10,” Microsoft mentioned in its blog post.

Cortana is a more than decent voice assistant, although many believed that Microsoft was slightly late to the party given that Google Now (currently Google Assistant) and Apple’s Siri were already pretty well established in the industry before Cortana arrived. This doesn’t mean the end of the road for Cortana however, as it will still continue to improve and grow under Windows 10.

Are you a Microsoft Launcher user? What do you make of this news? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: Microsoft Blog