Want to see how Cortana works on Microsoft Windows Phone 8.1? Gander above and all of the virtual digital assistant’s functions and features will be revealed. Well maybe not all, but this video (via TNW) does show a good amount, particularly around setup.
The oddly silent demo doesn’t feature any spoken commands but still responds to unheard input (or just defaults to a basic option), bringing back weather information. You also get a thorough look at feature menus including ‘Quiet Hours,’ which has an extensive menu of settings where users can clarify just how quiet they’d like Cortana to be at any given moment (you can pick what type of notifications are allowed to interrupt your virtual silence).
Setup requires a Microsoft account, which is no great surprise, and also involves answering a brief survey of “test questions” around personal preferences, preferred sources for news and more. Increased user input requirements should help it provide more personalized results out of the gate, but it’s also going to be a more laborious setup process than is required for either Siri or Google Now on mobile platforms that compete with Windows Phone.
One last thing to note are the very Xbox One-style sounds Cortana seems to make. Microsoft keeps moving towards platform unity, at least in terms of UI, so it isn’t all that surprising to see a digital assistant that takes its name from a video game borrow console-inspired sound effects.