Microsoft is announcing the death of Cortana’s mobile apps today. The company is shutting down Cortana for Android and iOS in early 2020.

The news comes shortly after the company announced some major Microsoft 365 and Cortana integrations were it’s integrating Cortana into other mobile apps like Outlook.

The death of Cortana’s Android and iOS apps will also mean some of its functionalities will be removed from the Microsoft Launcher app on Android. The company isn’t shutting down the app everywhere, though. In fact, it seems like the Cortana app will continue to exist for those in the US — for now, anyway. And as MSPU reports, the Cortana app only seems to be going away in certain countries like the UK, Australia, and Canada. It’s possible the app is shutting down in other markets, too.

Cortana’s mobile apps will officially go away on January 31st, 2020. It’s definitely not surprising to see Microsoft killing Cortana’s mobile apps, though. Lately, the apps were only really useful for controlling Cortana devices like Surface Headphones.  The move is quite interesting as Microsoft is still working on a brand-new Cortana app for Windows 10. It seems like Microsoft’s strategy for Cortana going forward is to integrate the personal assistant in useful ways on its other services instead of making it a “standalone” assistant like Google Assistant or Siri. It’s a change many Cortana fans probably won’t enjoy.

Tagged with Cortana