14 DAY TRIAL // Back in early April, when Microsoft unveiled Cortana and said that the beta version would only be available in the United States for several months, the Redmond-based company also confirmed that the digital assistant would eventually arrive in other countries as well.
Obviously, the arrival of Cortana in other countries would include lots of local content that would have to be integrated with the digital assistant, but Microsoft would also have to work on the accent of each language so that the software could better understand the user from a certain country.
That being said, Microsoft announced in April, during BUILD 2014 developer conference, that the next countries where Cortana would be available were China and the UK. The company also mentioned that the personal assistant would be launched in those countries only after the US version was out of the beta.
Microsoft also stated that the final version of Cortana should be officially released along with the launch of Windows Phone 8.1 for the general public.
According to the latest hearsay and according to Microsoft’s support website for Windows Phone, the latest version of the mobile platform is supposed to be released by the end of June.
Although there’s no exact release date available for the moment, there’s a high chance that this will happen on June 24 or around that date. However, take this speculation with a grain of salt, as Microsoft is still mum on the release of Windows Phone 8.1 for the masses.
Even though we thought that it would take quite a few months until Cortana made it to other countries like the UK and China, after Windows Phone 8.1 went official, it looks like fans won’t have to wait that long.
Microsoft’s Group Manager for Cortana, Marcus Ash, has recently confirmed that Windows Phone 8.1 users in the UK and China won’t have to wait months to be able to use the amazing features offered by the personal assistant.
@sM4llziE I should have added one. 0. Making #Cortana available in the UK and China will happen very soon. Weeks not months.
— Marcus Ash (@marcusash) June 14, 2014 According to Ash, Cortana should arrive in both China and the UK in weeks, not months. This means that Cortana could be released in the US, China and the UK around the same timeframe.
If the personal assistant isn’t available in the UK and China by the end of June, it should arrive sometime in early July, if nothing wrong happens.
We will keep an eye out for any additional details regarding the availability of Cortana in these countries, so stay tuned for more updates on the matter.