Tech giant Microsoft is reportedly testing Cortana within Outlook on iOS and Android that will use Bluetooth and read messages.
While Microsoft has been adding email intelligence to its Cortana digital assistant, but has till now resisted incorporating it directly into Outlook mobile. The Cortana integration will let Outlook mobile users to listen to and respond to emails with their voice.
Users can ask Cortana “what’s my email,” or can ask to read messages from specific contacts. The company has been said to currently testing Cortana integration internally, and if the feedback is positive, the new beta and public releases of Outlook for iOS and Android will have that functionality.
Earlier this month, Microsoft announced mobile push notification services will be turned off for Windows Phone 7.5 and Windows Phone 8.0.
If you are still on these devices, your phone will no longer receive notifications and will not receive additional live tile updates. The “Find my phone” feature will now no longer locate your phone.
“Windows Phone 7.5 and Windows Phone 8.0 have reached their end of support dates, and thus services for these versions of Windows will be discontinued over time,” the company said in a statement.
Notification services will continue to function for Windows Phone 8.1 at this time, and newer phones running Windows 10 mobile are still fully supported.
In October 2017, in a series of tweets, Windows Vice President Joe Belfiore has informed Twitter users that building new features and hardware for Windows 10 Mobile are not our focus anymore.
Belfiore also added that there will be fixes and security patches, but you shouldn't expect more than that. As to why the platform has been shut, Belfiore explained that the company experienced difficulty in getting developers to write apps. Earlier, Microsoft even tried paying companies to develop apps and even produced them on its own when creators couldn't.
But, since the number of users was "too low for most companies to invest,” why build an app for a small pack of Windows phone owners when the market has been dominated by Android and iOS users. Belfiore himself switched to Android for the "app/[hardware] diversity."
For more than 10 years, Microsoft has developed versions of its software for mobile devices --starting with Windows CE for personal digital assistants in 1996, and later with Windows Mobile in 2000.
But the ecosystem witnessed a tough competition since the launch of Apple's mobile OS in 2007 and Google's Android operating system (launched in 2008).
