Cortana (aka: How to Piss Off Beta Testers 101)
As a Canadian, no one has mastered pissing me off more than Microsoft when it comes to their services. And Cortana is special because it is the same infuriating non-sense... but on repeat.
A brief history. Cortana started out life on Windows Phone (and Windows Phone only). Initially, Cortana was only released in a few markets. But, others could get access by lying about their region and language. The defense from the Cortana team was basically "we need time to make sure everything is region appropriate and that everything works". Ok. But it was A) only available in beta builds and B) worked just fine if you simply tweaked your settings.
Sure, there may have been a few things it could have done better or more accurately with some polish (perhaps units of measure, or using a better regional weather provider or more common slang). But, there was no substantive reason to say, allow all English speaking users to simply use the US variant. Honestly, even day #1 I couldn't find a single tangible reason not to enable it in production. But since at the time the version of Windows Phone which included it was also beta... there was no freaking point!!!!
Fast forward to Windows 10 Beta. Cortana arrives on Windows 10. Canada isn't initially supported.
WHAT THE F***?!?!?!?!?! Didn't you just spend a boat load of time ironing out all of the reasons to not support Canada on Windows Phone?
OK. OK. "Maybe", Microsoft was absolutely idiotic and didn't write Cortana as a service and the code was written in a way which wasn't re-usable and everything needed to be re-engineered. Less than 1% chance it was like this. But I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.
Then Windows Phone 10 Mobile Beta. Oops. Cortana had been available in Windows Phone 8 semi-officially. But, update to Windows 10... and poof gone again. Granted, at this point it still wasn't officially in Windows 10 on desktop and they are supposedly the same OS. But this just illustrates how f***ing terrible the experience is.
SURELY SOMEONE noticed how dumb this looked! Nope.
Xbox update with Windows 10 Beta... no Cortana for Canada?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Oh and questions for Insiders... ABOUT F***ING CORTANA!
I don't even understand what is going on any more. There was SOME (extremely) minor justification when going from Windows Phone 8 to Windows 10... because:
A) It was a completely new OS.
B) Windows 10 > Windows Phone (in terms of scope)
With this latest insider build for Xbox though, supposedly I'm running Windows 10. And Xbox is more a subset of Windows 10 than the other way around. There might be a handful of new commands. But everything which might be region sensitive is a rather small subset of Windows 10 functionality.
For most intents and purposes, Canada can be considered identical to the US. I can literally drive to the states in 2 hours. And if you're actually in one of Canada's 3 major cities (Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver) you can get there even quicker. I'd speculate that something like 2/3 of Canadians (if not more) are within a similar range to the US as me. Suffice it to say, we talk a lot alike, share the same slang, watch the same TV shows, etc... any localization work already done in Windows 10 for desktop is a nice add. But we're not morons.
It is aggravating to be left out. Especially when you want to contribute and supply feedback. It is even worse when it happens over and over again. Worse still when you actually manage to repeat the frustration with the same service. And worse yet when you know the reasoning is absolutely trivial to those who want to test and experience these new features.
I'm not suggesting for one second that Microsoft should ship a production build with software they aren't happy with. I'm not using a production OS. I don't expect ANYTHING to be flawless.
Anyway, silly rant... but there you have it. How to do beta features wrong.
A brief history. Cortana started out life on Windows Phone (and Windows Phone only). Initially, Cortana was only released in a few markets. But, others could get access by lying about their region and language. The defense from the Cortana team was basically "we need time to make sure everything is region appropriate and that everything works". Ok. But it was A) only available in beta builds and B) worked just fine if you simply tweaked your settings.
Sure, there may have been a few things it could have done better or more accurately with some polish (perhaps units of measure, or using a better regional weather provider or more common slang). But, there was no substantive reason to say, allow all English speaking users to simply use the US variant. Honestly, even day #1 I couldn't find a single tangible reason not to enable it in production. But since at the time the version of Windows Phone which included it was also beta... there was no freaking point!!!!
Fast forward to Windows 10 Beta. Cortana arrives on Windows 10. Canada isn't initially supported.
WHAT THE F***?!?!?!?!?! Didn't you just spend a boat load of time ironing out all of the reasons to not support Canada on Windows Phone?
OK. OK. "Maybe", Microsoft was absolutely idiotic and didn't write Cortana as a service and the code was written in a way which wasn't re-usable and everything needed to be re-engineered. Less than 1% chance it was like this. But I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.
Then Windows Phone 10 Mobile Beta. Oops. Cortana had been available in Windows Phone 8 semi-officially. But, update to Windows 10... and poof gone again. Granted, at this point it still wasn't officially in Windows 10 on desktop and they are supposedly the same OS. But this just illustrates how f***ing terrible the experience is.
SURELY SOMEONE noticed how dumb this looked! Nope.
Xbox update with Windows 10 Beta... no Cortana for Canada?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Oh and questions for Insiders... ABOUT F***ING CORTANA!
I don't even understand what is going on any more. There was SOME (extremely) minor justification when going from Windows Phone 8 to Windows 10... because:
A) It was a completely new OS.
B) Windows 10 > Windows Phone (in terms of scope)
With this latest insider build for Xbox though, supposedly I'm running Windows 10. And Xbox is more a subset of Windows 10 than the other way around. There might be a handful of new commands. But everything which might be region sensitive is a rather small subset of Windows 10 functionality.
For most intents and purposes, Canada can be considered identical to the US. I can literally drive to the states in 2 hours. And if you're actually in one of Canada's 3 major cities (Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver) you can get there even quicker. I'd speculate that something like 2/3 of Canadians (if not more) are within a similar range to the US as me. Suffice it to say, we talk a lot alike, share the same slang, watch the same TV shows, etc... any localization work already done in Windows 10 for desktop is a nice add. But we're not morons.
It is aggravating to be left out. Especially when you want to contribute and supply feedback. It is even worse when it happens over and over again. Worse still when you actually manage to repeat the frustration with the same service. And worse yet when you know the reasoning is absolutely trivial to those who want to test and experience these new features.
I'm not suggesting for one second that Microsoft should ship a production build with software they aren't happy with. I'm not using a production OS. I don't expect ANYTHING to be flawless.
Anyway, silly rant... but there you have it. How to do beta features wrong.
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