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.
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.
Google Now actually just changed this so that it always launches in Chrome (like in the last couple of days.) You can launch it in your default browser through the hamburger menu after launching in Chrome. Pretty annoying actually - if anyone knows if it can be changed I'd love to change back. I rely on my search results opening in Firefox so that they get synced with my history and I can pull them up quickly from any device.
EDIT: Here it is on the 'What's New' list from the play store: http://imgur.com/6UGN2Dz they call it 'Open inside the app' but it's a chrome web view.
Yes, it is very unfortunate. This first started happening yesterday (for me), and I was kind of bummed that it didn't open in Firefox like it used to. It is stuff like this that lends credence to the EU's issues with Google. I am not sure why they feel it is worth it to just put stumbling blocks to user choice like this at every possible chance.
> 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.
There is. Convert the voice query to text, then send the resulting text to the user's preferred search engine.
Does not trigger the same (and spoken) response that at least Siri and "Ok Google" do.
And there are plenty of commands that don't result in a normal search at all, such as "ok google, what song is playing?" or "ok google, when is my next flight?"
Of course, but both fall back to a plain old web search when the request can't be processed specially. In those cases, why not fall back to your search engine of choice?
You get better transcriptions and better search results if you give your search backend a probability-weighted list of possible transcriptions and let it combine that with what it thinks you might be trying to search for given the context it has for you.
As an end-user I'd like to choose to use my preferred search engine with a singular voice-to-text query, rather than an array of possible voice-to-text-queries, even if it means losing context...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Complaining that Cortana uses Bing is like complaining that Google Now uses Google. What prevents Google from writing a drop-in replacement for Cortana on Windows like how MS can promote Cortana on Android as an alternative to Google Now?
Why would one need an API? What functionality would this API even expose that isn't possible already? Cortana can already be disabled and you are free to run any software you'd like.
Replace your launcher with another one... Not sure what installing the Cortana app will actually do/allow as side effects beyond that, as an alternative... I actually prefer the Google toolbar.
It can NOT be modified at all on Android L. You can remove all Google apps with root, install the fucking ADW Launcher, but no, it does NOT change that search bar.
I’ve tried to explain it before, too. Please listen to what I say and don’t suggest the same stuff everyone else has suggested before again when I already explained why it will NOT work.
I do find it ironic that you're getting so worked up about how a device that's actually from Google with Google's spin on Android has Google baked in. Since your Moto device doesn't do that, and since Nexus devices are specifically designed to let you install any ROM of your choosing (e.g. this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKKBbRHwIVQ seems to let one remove the search bar), I fail to see the problem here.
Do you mean Google apps like gmail, play store and youtube because I think it should totally be up to the Google to distribute those apps on platforms.
Because, otherwise you can get Google-free Android. Just look at Amazon FireOS or CyanogenMod.
Or, in fact just go ahead a grab a copy of the source and make it how you want it to be.
As long as Google forbids OEMs from producing both FireOS and Google Android devices, I can’t buy a CyanogenMod device from Motorola, or similar.
And no, I don’t think Google should be able to hardcode any of their services into Android – instead each service should be provided via a standardized API, so users can select defaults (like it already is done with many apps on Android).
What do you mean by hardcode? I disabled all Google apps incl Play Services, Services Framework, etc on my smartphone and it still works quite well. Sure, many people don't know how to do that but most of them certainly wouldn't want to do without either.
Which they can not legally do. That’s the point of Antitrust laws, to prevent one company unfairly taking over a market through their power in other markets.
Google has to treat all competing services the same as their own on Android or Search – in general, in all markets where they have a majority.
Microsoft had to add BrowserChoice.eu, and Google will have to add the same for Android, too. Microsoft was prevented from forcing OEMs to install Windows everywhere, and Google’s Anti-Fork Anti-Kindle clause will be declared invalid, too.
This is the law, and if Google wants to avoid doing so, they’ll have to avoid operating in the EU.
How would this even be possible unless company X replaced Google in which case company X knows all your secrets the same as Google does? There's a reason Google can remind you that your flight is in 3 hours; they parse your emails for that information. Another company would have to do that same thing.
I’m not talking about another company – I’m talking about me, myself.
One of my goals is to not share any data with a company I can’t trust – so I write my own tools for all these purposes, my own apps, and self-host these things.
I already have a several GB large archive of my mail as I self-host it, why shouldn’t I be able to write software to parse it and remind me?
Why do I always have to use services of a company when I buy a device, instead of being able to hack together my own?
When you bought IBM PCs, they didn’t force you to use Windows with Notepad either – instead, people could write Linux, GNU, and Emacs for their own usage.
This is what I expect from an open system, like Android.
I know this is getting into off-topic territory: That's exactly why I want a solid "real-linux" phone. Android is just too locked down and closed off for me. I've yet to try out the Ubuntu phone, but I'm really excited about it. Other than that, there's just no non-android linux phone that I know of.
A lot of that is the binary drivers for essential phone components... that said, Cyanogenmod is pretty close to "stock" (no google apps) and if you're on a rooted phone with a first or third party build of Cyanogenmod, you can do pretty much whatever you want.
Unfortunately, it's really the chipset builders and the lack of UEFI/BIOS or something similar in ARM (and other non-x86 mobile platforms) that locks it out even further.
Honest question: Should I care? This sounds to me less like a genuine thing to worry about and more like unresolved angst from 20 years ago.
IE is too deeply embedded in the OS to remove, sure. That doesn't mean that I ever use it, or need it for the things it does. I just leave it there, mostly ignored, and go use another browser for my Web surfing needs.
Or if we're talking mobile devices, there they do have a bit more control over their garden. But still, meh. Microsoft has no power in the mobile space.
When people ask an "honest question," in general they are explicitly stating they'd like an honest answer (in this case, is there an API) and not a charged and irrelevant commentary that snarkily begins with the words "honest question."
Don't mean to pick on you in particular, but this drives me nuts on HN. The parent probably really just wanted to know if there was an API and figured fostering discussion would be nicer than simply googling for the answer.
I did not get the impression the parent was making a comment about Microsoft with any political valence attached; there are genuine technical and taste reasons to wonder if you can swap out a search engine or a browser on a computer for a given task.
> Complaining that Cortana uses Bing is like complaining that Google Now uses Google.
Not really at all. People use Google because it provides superior search results. Bing takes longer to crawl new sites and doesn't crawl them nearly as often as Google does.
> […] Edge itself integrates with Cortana and offers various options that other browsers may or may not. Those integrations and options are likely to grow over time. Basically you can think of the search as a single end-to-end transaction in terms of the feature design, meaning that handoff to an undetermined browser or search engine doesn't produce the desired experience for the feature.
No Google used its ToS to move the goal post and demanded MS to have the app in HTML5, which it does not do for neither Android nor iOS. Everyone knew Google was snipping WP and hiding behind legalese.
There were, in fact, at the time, various 3rd party YouTube apps that worked perfectly well and were completely within the scope of the TOS - I personally preferred Jasmine on iOS to the official client.
Microsoft, however, decided that they were a special snowflake and didn't need to play by the rules. In fact, they also removed ads from YouTube -- Google's source of income with respect to YouTube.
Google was no doubt snipping WP. But Microsoft was in the wrong on that one - which just made it easier for Google. And the reason MS didn't want to do an HTML5 client for WP (and didn't want to admit it either) was that the HTML5 implementation on WP was not good enough to run YouTube reasonably. So they put themselves in the spot of either admitting an inferior browser or violating TOS. Either way, they made it easy for Google to hurt them.
Well funny enough, at that same time, Google blocked WP access to Google Maps, even through the browser. They claimed Google Maps only works properly in Webkit, even though it worked just fine in IE if you could get around their block. Couple that with the fact that, even after Google blocked WP's YouTube app, Google and Microsoft worked together to make a new app on HTML5 (proving wrong your claims that WP's HTML5 support wasn't good enough to support YouTube, the problem was WP plays HTML5 video through the built-in system media player and Google didn't want that), and after their collaboratively developed app was released, Google blocked it again. At the same time, Google wasn't enforcing iOS apps to be built purely with the HTML5 APIs, so literally only Microsoft had to follow these restrictions. The end result was, YouTube was only accessible through the browser and not through an app. Google then followed up these two things almost immediately with an announcement that they were dropping support for syncing Google calendars with Windows Phone.
I'm sorry, but there's no way to be on Google's side during that fight. It was a purely anti-competitive pissing contest. You don't have to be on Microsoft's side, but there is no legitimate way to say that Google wasn't abusing their dominant position over a competitor when it came to how they behaved in the early days of Windows Phone. There was a pattern of outright hostility. Google even said "we know where our users are, and they're not on Windows Phone". Since I was a Windows Phone user, I took the hint and stopped using all Google services. It's petty nonsense, and we all got enough of that in the 90s.
While I followed it, there were two Microsoft versions blocked by Google, no joint versions to speak off, and totally subpar YouTube website experience because WP's html5 support was inadequate - but I stopped following at some point, so we might both be right.
With respect to Google calendar - that indeed was a retaliation at Microsoft. Your story would be more complete if you mentioned that at the time, Microsoft was both threatening android makers with patents AND charging Google for patents related to Exchange services. While the timing probably was decided to best hit WP, I heard dropping exchange was planned a while before.
Incidentally, microsoft's response was "no, no, no! You don't have to pay exchange patent fees anymore, just let WP users use Google services again". And I am happy to report that, as you know, Google ignored that plea. Microsoft has been subdued into an almost reasonable market participant position - and I suspect this fight is one of the reasons.
Amazing that this thread holds Google and Microsoft to different standards. Google Now uses Google's search engine, no opt-out. Cortana now uses Bing's search engine, no opt-out. You can easily have your browser search hijacked by an extension in the browser (on desktops this is easy, on phone OS's not so easy.) So you use Cortana, then you get the search result and suddenly you are on a shady search provider, you get a virus and you blame it on Microsoft.
Sure, I think Microsoft should offer a solution to this that isn't so hamfisted; or is hamfisted but has an opt-out for power users (maybe that requires elevated permissions), but let's not pretend that search hijacking isn't commonplace. Most Windows users are not HackerNews readers or power users.
Well.. there are solutions.. in Windows 10, disable cortana, and/or replace Windows Explorer...
In Android, disable google now and/or replace the launcher.
I don't really hold either of them in the wrong on this issue... It really is about delivering a better integrated experience. Although, I do prefer Google's services over MS's bing and cortana.
Not a particular surprising move. Microsoft's CPC for Bing has be going up quarter over quarter and Google's has been going down. Presumably at some point they meet in the middle. But as Bing's have gotten high enough to pay the freight sending more traffic there is all upside for Microsoft.
The reasoning is a bit flimsy though, if you consider Cortana as simply a "hands free typing device" its kind of like restricting your special snowflake keyboard to only your apps.
But with Amazon owning the cloud computing dollars, Facebook consuming a bigger and bigger serving of the Internet Advertising pie, Netflix and Amazon being the place where video streaming makes money, I would expect Google has to feel a bit backed into a corner, and its competitors feeling a bit like they have a way to weaken it further. It feels like another "big shift" in terms of players in the market space.
I can understand as a programmer Bing being used for the more interesting functions, such as tracking packages or finding business hours and that sort of thing (the tasks that never leave the Cortana window) but come on Microsoft, beyond that we both know all you're going is opening a Bing search in the browser and that's NOT complicated at all.
I'm fine with Bing integration for most Cortana functions, but let us choose our own damn browser and our own damn search engine.
Yes and no I guess. People seem to forget Microsoft consists of 'departments' A/B/C/.../Z. So while A might still be all about proprietary software and B wants to embrace, there's also C open-sourcing tons of interesting stuff on github and sometimes even accepting PRs. C didn't exist a couple of years ago I think. So projecting sentences onto a single Microsoft entity is usually a false generalization. Same goes for a lot of other companies who are active in more than one field.
I'm rooting for Bing simply because Google search has no real competitors in the west. I'm sure Bing's accuracy and bot coverage/speed will improve with time, while Google might be kind of at the peak. Hopefully in the future search is more of a commodity so businesses aren't at the mercy of a single company's algorithms.
I'm rooting for a competitor that isn't bing. If Microsoft gets any significant market share it could mean yet another monopoly under their belt. They can't even compete directly without having to lock out their competitors.
They effectively did. Windows 8 mode for Chrome would actually put their Chrome apps button where users expected to find the start button, and the X at the top right would close the current Chrome window, but not the whole Chrome application.
I had a lot of people asking me what happened to their computer because they couldn't find their way out of it. It was basically malware.
I'm not familiar with that button, or maybe I've seen it and that was just an app launcher. What I was thinking it's something like a full blown start menu replacement, like the apps popping up when Win8 was launched because people wanted the start menu back.
I can see how even Win10 menu could be improved and Google could use the opportunity to step in and brand that side of Windows and collect data about Win users.
