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Microsoft Windows Phone 8.1 review: Major upgrade closes the gap with iOS and Android

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From the bold vibrancy of its new Start screen, to its new digital assistant, Cortana, Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 8.1 establishes itself as a top-tier smartphone platform.</div>
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And that’s critical—especially for an operating system currently holding a market share of less than 4 percent among U.S. smartphone buyers (though to be fair, it’s more popular elsewhere). That’s not to say it leaps ahead of Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android, but neither is it markedly deficient in any one area—although it could always use more, higher-quality apps.</div>
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What’s even better? You don’t need to twiddle your thumbs, waiting for your carrier to push Windows Phone 8.1 to your phone months down the road. You can sign up forWindows Phone Preview for Developers—yes, you, a mere consumer—and receive the same bits as the carriers receive, as well as any updates. (Note, however, that you may void your warranty, and you may not receive device-specific drivers right away.)</div>
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For those less adventurous, Windows Phone 8.1 will be available to all Windows Phone 8 devices, including the Nokia Lumia line. But you’ll likely have to wait a month or two for your carrier to vet the new, free update.</div>
<figure class="large " style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; max-width: 100%; overflow: hidden;"><a class="zoom cboxElement" href="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/windows_phone_81_nokia_lumia_icon_main_screen_detail_april_2014-100261372-orig.jpg" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #25a7d7; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="windows phone 81 nokia lumia icon main screen detail april 2014" height="387" src="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/windows_phone_81_nokia_lumia_icon_main_screen_detail_april_2014-100261372-large.jpg" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; height: auto; max-width: 100%; text-align: justify; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" width="580" /></a><small class="credit" style="background-image: url(http://csmb.staticworld.net/images/furniture/techhive/backgroundwhite70.png); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; display: block; float: left; font-size: 9px; margin-top: -16px; padding: 1px 3px 2px; text-align: justify; text-transform: uppercase;">IMAGE: MICHAEL HOMNICK</small><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #999999; font-family: facitweb, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 5px; text-align: center;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.7em; margin-bottom: 0.7em; text-align: justify;">
You can choose a photo to be the focal point of the Windows Phone 8.1 main screen. A random scattering of transparent and opaque Live Tiles overlays the photo, in a way that will seem personalized to some, maybe slightly manic to others.</div>
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Windows Phone 8.1 gets personal</h2>
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Windows Phone 8.1 wants to be <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">your</em> personal operating system. Live Tiles will peek through a screen background of your choosing. The new Cortana digital assistant adjusts itself to your needs and priorities, even screening your calls. And when something of import crops up, a notifications pull-down screen summarizes what you need to know. That barely scratches the surface of the upgrade, but the sum of all the parts is this: a palpable warmth about Windows Phone 8.1 that truly sets it apart.</div>
<figure class="medium right" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; float: right; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px 0px 5px 10px; max-width: 300px; overflow: hidden;"><a class="zoom cboxElement" href="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/windows-phone-8.1-3-100261356-large.png" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #25a7d7; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="windows phone 8.1 3" height="533" src="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/windows-phone-8.1-3-100261356-medium.png" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; height: auto; max-width: 100%; text-align: justify; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" width="300" /></a><small class="credit" style="background-image: url(http://csmb.staticworld.net/images/furniture/techhive/backgroundwhite70.png); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; display: block; float: left; font-size: 9px; margin-top: -16px; padding: 1px 3px 2px; text-align: justify; text-transform: uppercase;">MARK HACHMAN</small><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #999999; font-family: facitweb, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 5px; text-align: center;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.7em; margin-bottom: 0.7em; text-align: justify;">
The Windows Phone Start experience just keeps getting better and better.</div>
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If there was any knock on the Windows Phone 8 Start screen, it might have been that it was too electric. Every Live Tile was brightly colored, many with embedded information scrolling through. There was no obvious focal point.</div>
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In all fairness, some of those problems still remain. But my god, the upgrade’s beautiful. And personalized.</div>
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On iOS 7, the home screen is a matrix of flat icons. Microsoft redesigned its Windows Phone 8.1 Live Tiles so that on the Start screen, some would be transparent windows overlaid on a background image of your choosing. You can place a People tile that rolls through photos of your contacts. You can set another tile to flash photos from your Camera Roll. You can pin music, specific people, and even websites to the Start screen, all of which can serve updates.</div>
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Some might say it gives the Start screen more of a manic look and feel, but the personal touches make the difference. The Start screen could be just a sterile assembly of code and silicon, but instead, it’s a vibrant, incredibly welcoming front door.</div>
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On my Nokia Lumia Icon test unit, supplied by Microsoft, Windows Phone 8.1 allows three columns of large Live Tiles. If there’s any criticism to be made here, it’s that the opacity of the tiles themselves is arbitrary—I couldn’t find a way to enable or customize them.</div>
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The current (left) and future (right) Windows Phone 8.1 lock screens. The latter shows the circular Cortana digital assistant icon and some basic scheduling information overlaying a customizable background image.</div>
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The lock screen is also customizable to some degree. You can set any number of apps to display on the lock screen, along with the time, date, your next appointment, and the number of unread emails from multiple accounts. Eventually, Microsoft will publish a lock-screen customization app (announced at its recent Build conference), allowing Windows Phone users to create the sort of radically different launcher experiences that Android users can download. But it’s not quite ready, a Microsoft spokeswoman said.</div>
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Cortana: Microsoft’s first digital assistant</h2>
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Cortana, Microsoft’s first digital assistant, is the most dramatic innovation of the Windows Phone 8.1 upgrade. Cast in the mold of Apple’s Siri or Google’s Google Now, and still in beta, Cortana is designed to answer questions and perform simple tasks, such as playing music, setting reminders, or providing directions.</div>
<figure class="large " style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; max-width: 100%; overflow: hidden;"><a class="zoom cboxElement" href="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/cortana_notebook-100259380-orig.jpg" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #25a7d7; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="cortana notebook" height="387" src="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/cortana_notebook-100259380-large.jpg" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; height: auto; max-width: 100%; text-align: justify; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" width="580" /></a><small class="credit" style="background-image: url(http://csmb.staticworld.net/images/furniture/techhive/backgroundwhite70.png); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; display: block; float: left; font-size: 9px; margin-top: -16px; padding: 1px 3px 2px; text-align: justify; text-transform: uppercase;">FLORENCE ION</small><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #999999; font-family: facitweb, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 5px; text-align: center;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.7em; margin-bottom: 0.7em; text-align: justify;">
Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 8.1 tracks your interests via its new digital assistant, Cortana.</div>
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When setting her up, you’re asked to provide a list of topics she can track for you, providing ready updates. You also have the option of letting her peer into your email inbox and other aspects of your digital life, to improve her usefulness to you.</div>
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Windows Phone 8.1 offers three ways of accessing Cortana: as a Live Tile, as an app, and by holding down the Search (magnifying-glass) button on the phone itself. The first two methods generate a Cortana screen that includes some brief snippets of headlines. The third takes you directly to a voice-driven interface, where Siri asks and answers questions in a somewhat robotic, female voice.</div>
<figure class="large " style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; max-width: 100%; overflow: hidden;"><a class="zoom cboxElement" href="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/windows_phone_81_cortana_main_screen_nokia_lumia_icon_april_2014-100261366-orig.jpg" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #25a7d7; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="windows phone 81 cortana main screen nokia lumia icon april 2014" height="387" src="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/windows_phone_81_cortana_main_screen_nokia_lumia_icon_april_2014-100261366-large.jpg" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; height: auto; max-width: 100%; text-align: justify; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" width="580" /></a><small class="credit" style="background-image: url(http://csmb.staticworld.net/images/furniture/techhive/backgroundwhite70.png); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; display: block; float: left; font-size: 9px; margin-top: -16px; padding: 1px 3px 2px; text-align: justify; text-transform: uppercase;">IMAGE: MICHAEL HOMNICK</small><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #999999; font-family: facitweb, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 5px; text-align: center;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.7em; margin-bottom: 0.7em; text-align: justify;">
Holding down the Search (magnifying glass) button on the phone calls up the voice-activated version of Cortana.</div>
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How good is Cortana so far? That’s one question we answered for ourselves, pitting Cortana against Google Now and Siri. For a beta, Cortana’s already looking good, and she should only get better.</div>
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Word Flow: It works even for sloppy writers</h2>
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Windows Phone 8.1 also includes Word Flow, essentially Microsoft’s version of Swype(which was bought by Nuance in 2011). Like Swype, you can, well, swipe across the keyboard instead of trying to find the keys.</div>
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Quite frankly, I’m horrible at type-by-swipe. My individual fingers know the keys, but when my index finger begins wandering around the screen, it inexplicably loses track of which key is where, and I end up trying to peer around my moving index finger like an idiot. Fortunately, Word Flow was designed with my incompetence in mind. It works. Surprisingly well, in fact. I can use Android’s own type-by-swipe keyboard reasonably well, but I noticed a small improvement while using the Windows keyboard.</div>
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Wi-Fi Sense: Not quite as good as promised</h2>
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Windows Phone 8.1 ships with Wi-Fi Sense, a new app that, according to Microsoft, will automatically sign you into all of the free hotspots found at coffee shops and airports. In addition, you’ll automatically share your own home Wi-Fi credentials with friends. </div>
<figure class="medium left" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; float: left; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px 10px 5px 0px; max-width: 300px; overflow: hidden;"><img alt="windows phone 8.1 nearby wifi" height="157" src="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/windows-phone-8.1-nearby-wifi-100261358-medium.png" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; height: auto; max-width: 100%; text-align: justify; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" width="300" /><small class="credit" style="background-image: url(http://csmb.staticworld.net/images/furniture/techhive/backgroundwhite70.png); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; display: block; float: left; font-size: 9px; margin-top: -16px; padding: 1px 3px 2px; text-align: justify; text-transform: uppercase;">MARK HACHMAN</small><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #999999; font-family: facitweb, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 5px; text-align: center;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.7em; margin-bottom: 0.7em; text-align: justify;">
It may be hard to find (within the Wi-Fi menu of Settings) but the map of nearby free hotspots is invaluable.</div>
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In practice, Wi-Fi Sense is great for logging you in <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">after</em> you’ve arrived at a location. Loitering <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">outside</em> Starbucks, a local Marriott hotel, or a random office building never logged me in automatically—not once. But after manually accepting the terms of service at a free Starbucks hotspot, I was able to return and connect automatically. (This is probably for the best: You wouldn’t want to connect automatically and unwittingly to a “honeypot” Wi-Fi access point that’s out to <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/2043095/heres-what-an-eavesdropper-sees-when-you-use-an-unsecured-wi-fi-hotspot.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #25a7d7; text-decoration: none;">snatch your data</a>.) Wi-Fi Sense maintains a map of local open hotspots, a convenience that was also in Windows Phone 8.</div>
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There’s also an improved Data Sense, where you can set limits for your cellular data use. It can also instruct your phone to restrict background data in certain situations. Data Sense can cut consumption by 45 percent by compressing HTML and Javascript and slightly degrading the quality of downloaded images; or by 70 percent through more aggressive compression, as well as blocking some ads. I didn’t test this, but it’s a nice addition for those with prepaid plans.</div>
<figure class="medium right" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; float: right; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px 0px 5px 10px; max-width: 300px; overflow: hidden;"><img alt="windows phone 8.1 7" height="533" src="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/windows-phone-8.1-7-100261353-medium.png" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; height: auto; max-width: 100%; text-align: justify; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" width="300" /><small class="credit" style="background-image: url(http://csmb.staticworld.net/images/furniture/techhive/backgroundwhite70.png); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; display: block; float: left; font-size: 9px; margin-top: -16px; padding: 1px 3px 2px; text-align: justify; text-transform: uppercase;">MARK HACHMAN</small><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #999999; font-family: facitweb, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 5px; text-align: center;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.7em; margin-bottom: 0.7em; text-align: justify;">
Windows Phone 8.1’s Battery Saver can alter your phone’s behavior to conserve power.</div>
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Both Data Sense and the new Battery Saver app track data and power consumption, respectively, on an app-by-app basis. They’re both well thought-out and organized.</div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.75em;">Battery Saver also provides a “time remaining” estimate before your phone runs out of juice, something I’d like to see on other platforms. Naturally, there’s an option to conserve the available battery, which kicks in automatically when the phone is at 20-percent charge or lower. At that point, your phone drops into standby mode, accepting calls and texts, but syncing email and other apps only manually. It’s at least conceptually similar to the ultra-low-power mode added to the Samsung Galaxy S5, but without the special power-sipping, black-and-white formatting.</span></div>
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You can also prevent a given app from running in the background by manually turning off those features.</div>
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Action Center notifications: A bit TMI?</h2>
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Within Windows Phone 8, the Start screen’s Live Tiles were the primary source of communicating information, such as the number of unread emails. With Windows Phone 8.1, that’s augmented by a new Action Center notifications pane that can be pulled down from the top of the screen, even from the lock screen. </div>
<figure class="medium left" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; float: left; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px 10px 5px 0px; max-width: 300px; overflow: hidden;"><a class="zoom cboxElement" href="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/windows-phone-8.1-4-100261351-large.png" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #25a7d7; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="windows phone 8.1 4" height="533" src="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/windows-phone-8.1-4-100261351-medium.png" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; height: auto; max-width: 100%; text-align: justify; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" width="300" /></a><small class="credit" style="background-image: url(http://csmb.staticworld.net/images/furniture/techhive/backgroundwhite70.png); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; display: block; float: left; font-size: 9px; margin-top: -16px; padding: 1px 3px 2px; text-align: justify; text-transform: uppercase;">MARK HACHMAN</small><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #999999; font-family: facitweb, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 5px; text-align: center;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.7em; margin-bottom: 0.7em; text-align: justify;">
The new Action Center notifications can go on and on and on....</div>
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At the top of the pane are four icons: the local Wi-Fi router (if one is connected), a Bluetooth toggle, an “airplane mode” toggle, and a rotation lock toggle. You may replace them with other functions, such as the camera. Apps have the option of swapping in their own icons, too. There’s also a small link to the Settings page, plus a “Clear All” control. As it turns out, the latter’s rather important.</div>
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By default, the Notifications pane displays what appears to be every email you’ve received that day, from multiple accounts. On my device, that means my personal Gmail and Outlook.com accounts, as well as my work email filtered through Exchange. And that’s not counting the score updates from my MLB At Bat application. That’s <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">a lot</em> of scrolling. In this regard, Google’s Android does it better, with miniature tiles that let you drill down for more information.</div>
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Camera improvements: Stealing a page from Nokia</h2>
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Given that practically every Windows Phone is made by Nokia, which offers its own Nokia Camera app, Microsoft’s efforts to improve its Camera software might seem wasted. But Microsoft’s decision to eliminate Windows licensing fees from small-form-factor devices clearly is aimed at attracting a new wave of low-cost hardware partners.</div>
<figure class="large " style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; max-width: 100%; overflow: hidden;"><a class="zoom cboxElement" href="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/wp_20140412-9-100261359-orig.png" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #25a7d7; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Windows Phone 8.1 camera app" height="326" src="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/wp_20140412-9-100261359-large.png" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; height: auto; max-width: 100%; text-align: justify; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" width="580" /></a><small class="credit" style="background-image: url(http://csmb.staticworld.net/images/furniture/techhive/backgroundwhite70.png); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; display: block; float: left; font-size: 9px; margin-top: -16px; padding: 1px 3px 2px; text-align: justify; text-transform: uppercase;">MARK HACHMAN</small><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #999999; font-family: facitweb, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 5px; text-align: center;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.7em; margin-bottom: 0.7em; text-align: justify;">
Microsoft’s new Camera app for Windows Phone 8.1 borrows some features from the Nokia Camera app.</div>
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The Windows Phone 8.1 Camera app offers a new burst mode, a virtual necessity on hardware like the Icon, which is plagued by shutter lag. The Camera app now includes “lenses,” connections to third party apps like Twitter or 4Blend HDR. There are also new scene modes, including optimized settings for closeups, night shots, night portraits, sports, and backlit scenes. But you still won’t find the degree of customization available from Nokia Camera, which makes virtually everything manually accessible (including shutter speeds of a second or more). If you own a recent Lumia phone, use Nokia’s app—which will automatically launch if you hold down the camera button.</div>
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On the other hand, the Windows Phone Camera Roll will now organize your photos by date, location, and even activity, rather than the chronological order they defaulted to previously.</div>
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New People hub favors those with phone numbers</h2>
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If you have an iPhone, you can speak to friends via voice or FaceTime. Now that Skype has been integrated natively, you can do the same in Windows Phone 8.1.</div>
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Skype is now <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">always</em> active on your cell phone, too. Personally, I’ve never been a fan of trying to hold a video conversation on a wildly moving cell phone. It also appears that simply calling an Android user with Skype installed on their phone (and active) doesn’t allow one to upgrade the call from voice to Skype.</div>
<figure class="large " style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; max-width: 100%; overflow: hidden;"><a class="zoom cboxElement" href="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/windows-phone-8.1-people-hub-annoynace-100261362-orig.png" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #25a7d7; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="windows phone 8.1 people hub annoynace" height="219" src="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/windows-phone-8.1-people-hub-annoynace-100261362-large.png" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; height: auto; max-width: 100%; text-align: justify; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" width="580" /></a><small class="credit" style="background-image: url(http://csmb.staticworld.net/images/furniture/techhive/backgroundwhite70.png); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; display: block; float: left; font-size: 9px; margin-top: -16px; padding: 1px 3px 2px; text-align: justify; text-transform: uppercase;">MARK HACHMAN</small><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #999999; font-family: facitweb, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 5px; text-align: center;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.7em; margin-bottom: 0.7em; text-align: justify;">
The People Hub in Windows Phone 8.1 ignores contacts without phone numbers.</div>
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Integrating Skype also means that your database of Skype contacts will now be pulled into the People hub, which aggregates your contacts from Outlook, Gmail, Skype, and elsewhere.</div>
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Windows Phone 8.1’s contact screen puts Skype front and center.</div>
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But there’s a catch: On Windows Phone 8, Microsoft pulls your contacts from all of the possible connected services. But on Windows Phone 8.1, some of my contacts didn’t make the trip.</div>
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Why? Because, by default, Windows Phone 8.1’s People hub won’t show contacts that don’t have phone numbers attached to them. That’s a big change from Windows Phone 8, and one that caused me a bit of angst as I tried to track down what happened.</div>
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Granted, I can see the point: By connecting Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, you can end up with a ton of somewhat meaningless contacts. To add contacts from those networks, you’ll need to visit the Email + accounts submenu in the Settings.</div>
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Internet Explorer 11: New views and features</h2>
<figure class="medium left" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; float: left; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px 10px 5px 0px; max-width: 300px; overflow: hidden;"><img alt="windows phone 8.1 site tile edit" height="293" src="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/windows-phone-8.1-site-tile-edit-100261360-medium.png" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; height: auto; max-width: 100%; text-align: justify; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" width="300" /><small class="credit" style="background-image: url(http://csmb.staticworld.net/images/furniture/techhive/backgroundwhite70.png); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; display: block; float: left; font-size: 9px; margin-top: -16px; padding: 1px 3px 2px; text-align: justify; text-transform: uppercase;">MARK HACHMAN</small><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #999999; font-family: facitweb, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 5px; text-align: center;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.7em; margin-bottom: 0.7em; text-align: justify;">
Windows Phone 8.1 allows you to pin websites to your Start screen.</div>
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Windows Phone 8.1 adds Internet Explorer 11, which most users simply will think of as “the browser.” IE11 brings a host of improvements to the table: Reading View reformats websites into clean, ad-free pages. InPrivate provides (mostly) anonymous browsing. A High Savings Mode trims data consumption and is linked to the new Data Sense app, as one of many performance enhancements. As mentioned previously, you can now pin websites to the Start screen as Live Tiles and watch them dynamically update over time.</div>
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Calendar, Messaging and Email improvements</h2>
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Some Windows Phone 8.1 aim to satisfy business users, including the addition of VPN support and a “workplace account” to create a portion of the phone that can be managed by an enterprise. Unfortunately, my employer, IDG, minimizes this, so I could not properly test it, nor could I connect to my workplace VPN. Email now includes S-MIME encryption support.</div>
<figure class="medium left" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; float: left; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px 10px 5px 0px; max-width: 300px; overflow: hidden;"><img alt="windows phone 8.1 6" height="533" src="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/windows-phone-8.1-6-100261354-medium.png" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; height: auto; max-width: 100%; text-align: justify; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" width="300" /><small class="credit" style="background-image: url(http://csmb.staticworld.net/images/furniture/techhive/backgroundwhite70.png); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; display: block; float: left; font-size: 9px; margin-top: -16px; padding: 1px 3px 2px; text-align: justify; text-transform: uppercase;">MARK HACHMAN</small><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #999999; font-family: facitweb, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 5px; text-align: center;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.7em; margin-bottom: 0.7em; text-align: justify;">
Window Phone 8.1’s Calendar app: Looks nice, and useful as well.</div>
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The Calendar app does a nice job of straddling your work and business life by simply combining calendars from Outlook, Exchange, Google, and others, pulling in birthdays from Facebook, and displaying each in different colors. Microsoft added daily weather data, too, although it’s not clear whether it’s keyed to the location of those meetings.</div>
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While you can set Calendar appointments via Cortana, there’s still room for improvement. Note to Microsoft: please consider adding some sort of “travel buffer” between appointments, so that salespeople and other mobile teams have an idea of how many meetings they can physically pack in a day.</div>
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Finally, it’s worth noting that you can now “mute” an SMS chain between you and someone else, in case you’re busy or someone is simply bugging you. You can also delete the SMS message chain altogether.</div>
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Windows Phone keeps getting better</h2>
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While the Windows 8.1 Update for PCs introduced a number of improvements, it all felt like Microsoft was fidgeting, trying to fine-tune the computing experience to appease its most irate critics. The updates to Windows Phone 8.1, by contrast, feel far more fundamental. Yes, the latest iteration of Android, KitKat, pushed Google’s Voice Search and Google Now into the forefront. Apple’s iOS7 added notifications and a redesigned user interface. So we’ve seen this before—it’s Microsoft just playing catch-up, right? </div>
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Yes, to an extent. But with Windows Phone 8.1, Microsoft has built significantly onto an already-decent OS, and other pieces are falling into place: Microsoft’s continued courting of developers, the imminent assimilation of Nokia, and Microsoft’s recent commitment to universal apps spanning Windows and Windows Phone.</div>
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Neither Apple nor Google should be worried that Microsoft’s app ecosystem is going to overshadow theirs anytime soon, and that’s the remaining challenge for Windows Phone as a platform. But Microsoft now has a firm foundation—a welcoming operating system with enough technical chops to attract both consumers and developers. This is the new reality: Microsoft can finally compete alongside Apple and Google, in what is now a three-way race.</div>
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Microsoft Windows Phone 8.1 review: Major upgrade closes the gap with iOS and Android

From the bold vibrancy of its new Start screen, to its new digital assistant, Cortana, Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 8.1 establishes itsel...

3:09 PM

Battle of the digital assistants: Windows Phone Cortana vs Google Now vs Siri

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The personal computer has endured for more than 30 years. We understand it. It’s familiar. But digital assistants—the new breed of smartphone data butlers designed to make our lives simpler—have yet to climb out of their cribs.</div>
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This holds true for Cortana, the digital assistant built into Windows Phone 8.1, which Microsoft released as a developer preview on Monday. It’s packed with intuition, but it’s still a beta product, and it isn’t a miracle worker by any means. </div>
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The perfect digital assistant would anticpate our every need, retrieving answers from search engines, connecting us with our social networks, and tapping into maps and calendars to guide our travel and appointments. But no single digital assistant has yet figured out how to connect all these dots in an effective, intuitive way.</div>
<figure class="large " style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; max-width: 100%; overflow: hidden;"><img alt="cortana savethewhales" height="387" src="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/cortana_savethewhales-100259379-large.jpg" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; height: auto; max-width: 100%; text-align: justify; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" width="580" /><small class="credit" style="background-image: url(http://csmb.staticworld.net/images/furniture/techhive/backgroundwhite70.png); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; display: block; float: left; font-size: 9px; margin-top: -16px; padding: 1px 3px 2px; text-align: justify; text-transform: uppercase;">FLORENCE ION</small><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #999999; font-family: facitweb, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 5px; text-align: center;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.7em; margin-bottom: 0.7em; text-align: justify;">
Cortana includes a feature that ties reminders to proximity. But how well does it work in practice?</div>
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As we compare the three big names in digital assistants—Cortana, Apple’s Siri and Google Now—we expect these services to evolve gradually from helpful librarians into full-fledged concierges. But we’re not there yet. The assistants do an admirable job in responding to queries, but they haven’t yet mastered the ability to tell us what we need even before we ask.</div>
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Just the facts, ma’am</h2>
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To test the three services, we quizzed each assistant on a variety of general facts and calculations. Then we asked them to perform a number of common smartphone operations—nearly 40 in all. We scored each assistant on the accuracy of its results and the elegance of its operation. </div>
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We awarded two points if an assistant completed a task by providing simple search results, and three points if it responded orally or displayed a “card,” which would add an image and further information to the oral response. We also awarded a bonus half-point if an assistant completed a task especially well.</div>
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We wanted to penalize outright failure heavily, which is why our scale starts at two points. If one of the assistants couldn’t provide <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">any</em> helpful response, it received a zero.</div>
<figure class="medium left" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; float: left; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px 10px 5px 0px; max-width: 300px; overflow: hidden;"><img alt="cortana 8" height="533" src="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/cortana-8-100261252-medium.jpg" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; height: auto; max-width: 100%; text-align: justify; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" width="300" /><small class="credit" style="background-image: url(http://csmb.staticworld.net/images/furniture/techhive/backgroundwhite70.png); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; display: block; float: left; font-size: 9px; margin-top: -16px; padding: 1px 3px 2px; text-align: justify; text-transform: uppercase;">MARK HACHMAN</small><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #999999; font-family: facitweb, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 5px; text-align: center;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.7em; margin-bottom: 0.7em; text-align: justify;">
Cortana presents visually robust results for map information, but no oral response.</div>
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So how did our three contenders perform? Check out our list of questions and tasks for the full rundown (clicking the following link will download a read-only spreadsheet file):</div>
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Battle of the digital assistants: Windows Phone Cortana vs Google Now vs Siri</div>
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Here’s the short story: Google Now scored 101 points, Siri scored 97 points, and Cortana came in last with a score of 87. We really couldn’t factor in the proactive powers of each assistant—<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">and this is exactly why our numerical scores are only part of the story</em>.</div>
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A key value of a digital assistant is how well it anticipates what you want before you want it. When it works, it’s magic. The first time Google Now pinged me with an unprompted message telling me my flight was delayed, it blew my mind.</div>
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Without a substantial body of emails, searches, and other contextual information to pull from, over time, it’s difficult for any digital assistant to provide proactive assistance. This factor alone inhibited our ability to fully cross-compare Cortana, Google Now and Siri. And keep in mind that although these digital assistants were built with "natural language" in mind, certain phrases aren't recognized: "tweet hello" and "tweet on Twitter hello" weren't recognized by Google Now. "Update Twitter hello" is, but do users recognize that?</div>
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At this point, however, we can definitively state that at this point Siri lacks the proactive, “I’ll help you before you even ask” intuitive powers of Google Now and Cortana. This puts it at the bottom of the digital-assistant heap, despite its silver-medal showing in our task testing.</div>
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The general rule of thumb is this: The more data you feed a digital assistant, the better it works. Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to reconcile this reality with privacy concerns. But that’s the future of mobile computing.</div>
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Now let’s look at each service in detail.</div>
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Cortana: an impressive debut</h2>
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The beta Cortana appears to be taking aim at Google Now, as the two assistants’ capabilities overlap quite a bit. Still, it’s great to see Microsoft striking off on its own.</div>
<figure class="medium right" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 5px 10px; max-width: 300px; overflow: hidden;"><a class="zoom cboxElement" href="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/cortana-7-100261214-orig.jpg" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #25a7d7; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="cortana 7" height="533" src="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/cortana-7-100261214-medium.jpg" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; height: auto; max-width: 100%; text-align: justify; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" width="300" /></a><small class="credit" style="background-image: url(http://csmb.staticworld.net/images/furniture/techhive/backgroundwhite70.png); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; display: block; float: left; font-size: 9px; margin-top: -16px; padding: 1px 3px 2px; text-align: justify; text-transform: uppercase;">MARK HACHMAN</small><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #999999; font-family: facitweb, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 5px; text-align: center;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.7em; margin-bottom: 0.7em; text-align: justify;">
Cortana can find highly-rated restaurants near you.</div>
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Cortana can be accessed by tapping on its Live Tile or holding down the Search button. Unlike the other two assistants, it will ask you your name <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">and</em> how to pronounce it. (You also have the option of adding something silly, such as “Master,” for an “I Dream of Jeannie” effect.) </div>
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At startup, Cortana will ask permission to access your email, People, and contacts, as well as your location and even your Facebook account. If you’d like to receive the full Cortana experience, allow this. Via Bing, Cortana also asks for an incredible amount of detail about you and your Facebook friends. Be warned.</div>
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Next, Cortana will ask you some personal questions, such as what you like to do in the evening and what types of information interest you most. These are mostly harmless and are used to set your initial interests—topics that Cortana will research for you.</div>
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The results appear when you launch the Cortana app: Below Cortana’s spinning circle icon, you’ll see a “daily glance” of news headlines that have been culled from your stated interests. The top news snippet will usually appear in the Cortana Live Tile. I didn’t find this especially compelling, but I’m willing to assume that it will improve over time.</div>
<figure class="medium left" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: left; margin: 0px 10px 5px 0px; max-width: 300px; overflow: hidden;"><img alt="cortana 3" height="533" src="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/cortana-3-100261208-medium.jpg" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; height: auto; max-width: 100%; text-align: justify; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" width="300" /><small class="credit" style="background-image: url(http://csmb.staticworld.net/images/furniture/techhive/backgroundwhite70.png); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; display: block; float: left; font-size: 9px; margin-top: -16px; padding: 1px 3px 2px; text-align: justify; text-transform: uppercase;">MARK HACHMAN</small><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #999999; font-family: facitweb, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 5px; text-align: center;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.7em; margin-bottom: 0.7em; text-align: justify;">
A list of “interests” Cortana will monitor.</div>
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You can add interests whenever you’d like, although there’s a limited number to choose from: Daily Routine (traffic and the “daily glance” of news headlines); News (spanning all sorts of topics); Eat + Drink (meal suggestions); Travel (a trip planner); and Weather.</div>
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Expect Cortana also to figure out where you live and work—i.e., the locations you frequent during the workweek and on weekends. Unfortunately, Cortana didn’t tell me any information about travel times when I set a meeting.</div>
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Keying Cortana to the search button was a smart move—it’s the easiest way to access it. Certain queries will generate an attractive “card” response, including an oral response, an image, and some additional explanation. It’s also worth noting that you can trigger Cortana without first bypassing the lock screen. Searching via Cortana can pull up contacts, music, and documents stored on the phone itself—but, oddly, can’t seem to search your OneDrive account.</div>
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Although Cortana handled everything we threw at it pretty well, there were some inexplicable omissions: Asking it to email a contact failed during my hands-on, and it still didn’t work at the time this story posted.</div>
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Neither does asking Cortana for the details of an airline flight (bad news, as that’s one of Google Now’s strengths) or telling it to take a picture. The latter generates a page of search results, which is just laughable.</div>
<figure class="medium right" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 5px 10px; max-width: 300px; overflow: hidden;"><img alt="cortana 9" height="533" src="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/cortana-9-100261253-medium.jpg" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; height: auto; max-width: 100%; text-align: justify; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" width="300" /><small class="credit" style="background-image: url(http://csmb.staticworld.net/images/furniture/techhive/backgroundwhite70.png); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; display: block; float: left; font-size: 9px; margin-top: -16px; padding: 1px 3px 2px; text-align: justify; text-transform: uppercase;">MARK HACHMAN</small><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #999999; font-family: facitweb, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 5px; text-align: center;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.7em; margin-bottom: 0.7em; text-align: justify;">
Cortana usually delivers you a few news snippets when opening the app.</div>
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Finally, ordering Cortana to call “Round Table Pizza” won’t work if the number isn’t saved to your contacts. Both Siri and Google Now will simply search for the number in the background and call the closest location. Cortana is a beta product, and it shows in quirks like these.</div>
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You can tell Cortana to listen to and identify a song being played. It will even match that song to a track in your collection or in the Xbox Music store. There’s also a setting to enable “vision searches” with the camera, but I couldn’t get it to work.</div>
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Cortana includes a few nifty features that aren’t available in Google Now, as far as I know: Quiet Hours, and the related Inner Circle of friends. (Apple's iOS6 added these capabilities, called Do Not Disturb.)</div>
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As the name implies, you can set a time (after 11 pm, for example) when Cortana will intercept a call and prevent you from being disturbed. It’s convenient for bedtime, or even during critical business meetings. But Cortana will let a privileged Inner Circle of friends break through the cone of silence. You can also tell Cortana to allow repeated calls through, indicating an emergency.</div>
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Here's another handy feature: If you receive a text saying, for example: “Let’s meet at AT&T Park at 7 to go see the game,” Cortana will highlight part of the text. Clicking it allows you to schedule it automatically on your calendar.</div>
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Siri doesn’t suck, but she’s limited</h2>
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At this point, the notion that Apple’s Siri simply can’t cut it is ingrained into the national zeitgeist. The Simpsons parodied it. A disgruntled customer filed suit because of it. And when Siri launched, maybe there was a case to be made. But iOS 7 reportedly improved Siri, and our tests showed that it holds its own. </div>
<figure class="medium right" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 5px 10px; max-width: 300px; overflow: hidden;"><a class="zoom cboxElement" href="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/siri-3-100261217-orig.png" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #25a7d7; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="siri 3" height="533" src="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/siri-3-100261217-medium.png" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; height: auto; max-width: 100%; text-align: justify; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" width="300" /></a><small class="credit" style="background-image: url(http://csmb.staticworld.net/images/furniture/techhive/backgroundwhite70.png); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; display: block; float: left; font-size: 9px; margin-top: -16px; padding: 1px 3px 2px; text-align: justify; text-transform: uppercase;">MARK HACHMAN</small><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #999999; font-family: facitweb, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 5px; text-align: center;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.7em; margin-bottom: 0.7em; text-align: justify;">
Siri handles basic queries with aplomb.</div>
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In terms of supplying basic facts, Siri shines, combining accurate responses with cards that offer deeper information dives, especially when the assistant taps online math engine Wolfram Alpha for its answers.</div>
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When you ask more complicated questions, Siri often defaults to a list of search results. We didn’t ding any of the assistants more than a point if the answer was readily apparent from the list of responses. But when more complicated, interpretive questions were asked—“How long does it take light to travel to the Earth from the Sun?”—Siri failed to provide any sort of coherent result.</div>
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Perhaps it was too much to ask for Siri to play a song we didn’t own in iTunes, but its ability to handle common tasks also lacked sophistication. For example, Siri lacks geofencing capabilities, so asking it to remind me to buy eggs and milk at the grocery store set up a generic reminder, rather than keying it to a specific location, as other services do.</div>
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On the other hand, Macworld goes into several things Siri<em style="box-sizing: border-box;"> does</em> do that other services don’t: Utter “Read me my email,” and Siri will comply. Say “Turn on Bluetooth,” and Siri dives into the settings menu. Ask her “What’s going on,” and she lists trending topics on Twitter.</div>
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Siri seems to be the only assistant that can reliably post to Twitter and Facebook through voice commands alone.</div>
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Siri’s greatest weakness is that she does what you tell her to do, and little more. Siri’s good at pinging you with reminders you set, but she won’t step in to remind you that your flight is late. In fact, if you don’t say “Tell me about Southwest flight 212,” the list of search results it generates simply includes the Southwest webpage. On the other hand, iOS<em style="box-sizing: border-box;"> apps</em>can step in. YouTube, for example, pinged me about a new video I might be interested in when I rebooted the iPhone. And Siri can post to Twitter and Facebook.</div>
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If you’re unimpressed with Siri, you can explore alternative digital assistants for iOS: Cue and EasilyDo, among others. You can also install Google Search, which hides the third—and best—digital assistant, Google Now. Yes, if you do think Siri sucks, you can actually download a superior digital assistant, Google Now, directly to your iPhone.</div>
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Google Now: Still the best</h2>
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Google Now launched with Android 4.1 in July of 2012, and the software has only improved with age. Google has broadened its reach, from tracking packages to providing travel reminders. Google doesn’t thrust itself into your face. If anything, you sometimes need to dig a bit to find all it has to offer.</div>
<figure class="medium right" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 5px 10px; max-width: 300px; overflow: hidden;"><a class="zoom cboxElement" href="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/google-now-2-100261238-orig.png" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #25a7d7; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="google now 2" height="533" src="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/google-now-2-100261238-medium.png" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; height: auto; max-width: 100%; text-align: justify; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" width="300" /></a><small class="credit" style="background-image: url(http://csmb.staticworld.net/images/furniture/techhive/backgroundwhite70.png); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; display: block; float: left; font-size: 9px; margin-top: -16px; padding: 1px 3px 2px; text-align: justify; text-transform: uppercase;">MARK HACHMAN</small><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #999999; font-family: facitweb, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 5px; text-align: center;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.7em; margin-bottom: 0.7em; text-align: justify;">
Google Now throws up a collection of cards fr you to browse through.</div>
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And that’s Google’s strength: Google Now virtually invented proactive notifications. In general, what you need is pretty close to your fingertips, when you actually need it.</div>
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Google’s weakness? It’s the seemingly infinite variety of Android phone manufacturers, their skins and customizations, and the many permutations of Google’s operating system and apps. On an older Samsung Galaxy Nexus, it’s relatively easy to find Google Now: swipe up from the bottom of the screen. But on a Samsung Note 3, Samsung actually hides Google Now behind its inferior S Voice controls, robbing the digital assistant of much of its power.</div>
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What we think of as Google Now actually consists of two separate services: Voice Search, and Google Now proper. Voice Search is the command center. By tapping the microphone in the Google search widget (or by simply saying “OK Google” on supported phones), you can command your Android device to call a friend, navigate to a location, ask a question, set a reminder, play music, or perform a Web search. </div>
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In general, Voice Search works independently, so if you want to ask Google what the capital of North Dakota is, you can. Enabling Google Now, however, opens up a much broader set of options. </div>
<figure class="medium left" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: left; margin: 0px 10px 5px 0px; max-width: 300px; overflow: hidden;"><img alt="google now 1" height="533" src="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/google-now-1-100261237-medium.png" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; height: auto; max-width: 100%; text-align: justify; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" width="300" /><small class="credit" style="background-image: url(http://csmb.staticworld.net/images/furniture/techhive/backgroundwhite70.png); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; display: block; float: left; font-size: 9px; margin-top: -16px; padding: 1px 3px 2px; text-align: justify; text-transform: uppercase;">MARK HACHMAN</small><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #999999; font-family: facitweb, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 5px; text-align: center;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.7em; margin-bottom: 0.7em; text-align: justify;">
Google Now also handles basic searches quite well.</div>
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To do so, swipe up in the lock screen or from the bottom of your screen. On the Note 3, for example, you can tap once on the home screen, then tap the Google button at the bottom. In any event, if you haven’t used Google Now before, you’ll be asked to define cards Google Now should suggest. There are cards for traffic, weather, public transit, and much more. (CiteWorld goes into a lengthier explanation of the Google Now setup process.) </div>
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Google uses a more organic process than Microsoft appears to. For example, if you once searched for a local Thai restaurant, you may occasionally see a card pop up with the time it will take to get there. Search for the score of the Miami Marlins game, as I did to test it, and Google thinks you’ll want to monitor the Marlins in the future. Google Now can be a bit overeager.</div>
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Once Google Now is configured, you can swipe down through the cards. On each, there’s an options menu to the upper right: Sports scores can be hidden, for example to “avoid spoilers.” You can also filter out updates from a particular website, so cards about that website quit clogging up your Google Now stream.</div>
<figure class="medium right" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 5px 10px; max-width: 300px; overflow: hidden;"><img alt="google now 5" height="533" src="http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2014/04/google-now-5-100261227-medium.png" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; height: auto; max-width: 100%; text-align: justify; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" width="300" /><small class="credit" style="background-image: url(http://csmb.staticworld.net/images/furniture/techhive/backgroundwhite70.png); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; display: block; float: left; font-size: 9px; margin-top: -16px; padding: 1px 3px 2px; text-align: justify; text-transform: uppercase;">MARK HACHMAN</small><figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; color: #999999; font-family: facitweb, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-top: 5px; text-align: center;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.7em; margin-bottom: 0.7em; text-align: justify;">
A request to play a certain song yields options in Google Play Music (your own cloud storage locker) and YouTube.</div>
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At the bottom of Google Now’s main interface, a menu option lets you poke through the Settings menu. There’s also a “magic wand” to help you fine-tune your cards, and the finger icon will list your current reminders.</div>
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Overall, Google Now does an excellent job of answering questions, almost always directly answering them with a card. I would swear, however, that when Google previously fielded a command like “Remind me when I get to the grocery store to pick up milk,” it would lock on to the nearest grocery store. But not any more. For now, Cortana gets the nod on this trick.</div>
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Google also does a great job of combing through your email and location, suggesting places to go and setting reminders of upcoming events. One of Google Now’s claims to fame is mining your email and your calendar for your next appointment, determining when it is, checking traffic, and calculating when you need to leave. That’s integration.</div>
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I would appreciate seeing a bit more information about my current location, though, possibly culling some of Google’s Field Trip app knowledge into a better contextual awareness. </div>
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Google Now also now ties into your desktop PC. If you don’t notice your phone’s vibration in your pocket, a notice will pop up in the corner of your Chrome browser. </div>
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This isn't the final word on the subject; all three services will continue to evolve, and improve. And all three have unique talents, providing intriguing directions for differentiation. For now, Google Now sets the bar for what a digital assistant should be, and based on our tests, it's still the superior service. Microsoft’s Cortana makes a valiant effort, but it needs to shore up some of its weaknesses, such as Facebook and Twitter integration. And quite frankly, if Apple built in some predictive capabilities into Siri, Siri could retake the lead.</div>
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