Microsoft begins testing a major redesign of the iOS and Android Cortana apps, with a focus on conversational experiences and more
Dan Thorp-Lancaster / Windows Central :
Context & Ripple Effects
Cortana has been on rival mobile platforms since Microsoft first shipped it as a standalone app for iOS and Android in March 2015, followed by a design refresh and UK expansion at the end of 2016 (that December update). What changes now is the interaction model: this beta rebuilds the apps around conversational experiences rather than the card-and-command layout of earlier versions.
First-order effects
- iOS and Android users in the beta get a conversation-first Cortana instead of the tile-based interface from the 2016-era app, and the test directly precedes the redesigned experience shipping broadly on iOS the following month (the November iOS rollout).
Second-order effects
- On iOS and Android, Cortana competes against Siri and Google Assistant on their home turf, so Microsoft's differentiation rests entirely on the quality of the conversational layer rather than operating-system integration — raising the bar for how natural its dialogue handling feels relative to the native assistants.
Third-order effects
- The conversational redesign proves to be a template rather than a one-off: Microsoft extends the same chat-based, text-and-voice model to Windows 10 in its 2019 Insider beta (the chat-based Windows UI), suggesting mobile was the proving ground for a company-wide shift toward dialogue as the primary assistant interface.
The trend: Microsoft is converging its assistant surfaces on a conversational, chat-first interface — a line running from the Cortana mobile redesign through the Windows 10 chat UI toward its later Copilot consolidation.