5 ways Cortana wins over Siri

Microsoft announced last week that they were releasing the Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview Build 14342 to Windows Insiders in the Fast ring. Some of these improvements and updates add functionality to Cortana, so we take a look at Microsoft’s virtual assistant to see what she offers over Apple’s Siri.

To start enjoying the benefits of Cortana you need to activate her. Here’s how:

  1. Click in the search box next to the Start menu button.
  2. In the window that appears click the “I’m in!” button.
  3. Read the privacy terms and click “I agree”. If you don’t agree you can’t use Cortana.
  4. On the next screen choose whether you want to enable “Hey, Cortana” to allow your PC to always listen for you voice, which allows you to speak your commands to Cortana without clicking anything first. If you want to enable this, click “Yes please”.
  5. Now, on the final setup screen, enter your name, or what you would like Cortana to call you and click “Use that” to confirm it.

So just how does Cortana win over Apple’s Virtual assistant Siri?

1. Microsoft’s virtual assistant maintains a list of the users’ preferences, its “notebook,” to provide relevant information to the user. What’s more, Cortana’s notebook currently has about 15 customisable categories of information to make Microsoft’s assistant smarter and more life like, including everything from the user’s academic background to their favorite sports teams.

2. Cortana has been designed to recognise context, allowing it to understand follow up requests and provide useful answers even when you phrase things differently.

3. People Reminders will remind you of important information when you next have a call or message conversation, for example, you’ll be reminded of your mother’s birthday as you call her on that date.

4. Developers have the ability to hook into Cortana’s functionality via common APIs, meaning apps can have voice control without complex programming.

5.  Cortana is tied into different apps, allowing it to check out your boyfriend’s Facebook feed for you, or tell you the calorie content of your lunch, adding it to your calorie tracker.

Experience Cortana for yourself on the Microsoft Lumia 950 and Lumia 950XL.

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