The Google Assistant has had mixed performances since its unveiling at the launch of the Google Pixel and Pixel XL phones in October 2016.
While this Assistant’s reception is only based on a small section of Google Pixel and Pixel XL users, the search engine giant is now working towards adding the functionality to other devices using at least Android Marshmallow. Well, Google is quite too late in the game as Microsoft already beat it to bring its own digital assistant known as Cortana to Android back in 2015.
Since the debut of Microsoft Cortana for Android devices, the Redmond Company has been hard at work trying to improve each and every aspect of the digital assistant – something that can be felt or rather seen in the latest version of the app.
If you use Cortana for Android, you should know that the app doesn’t have support for lockscreen functionality where you can add a shortcut of the same to your lockscreen for easy access. Well, this is no more as the latest version has added this functionality that lets users create a shortcut to Cortana on your Android phone’s lockscreen.
Once installed, the feature can be found via the settings. When enabled, Cortana will proceed to add a tiny floating button on the lockscreen. All you need to do is swipe left or right on the button and this will bring up information feed, upcoming appointments, news and other helpful information. On the contrary, there’s actually no way you can go ahead and ask Cortana anything.
This functionality comes in version 2.5 of the app, but as at the time of this writing, it is probably not available to everyone’s Google Play Store. Don’t fret, it’ll be there sooner than you think. Alternatively, you can visit the official APK Mirror website or XDA developers’ forum and grab the APK version.