It's important to note that the Cortana app itself is in beta. I think the most interesting news about Cortana is that, unlike Siri and Google Now, it can be extended by 3rd-party developers.
For example, my Chase Mobile app uses Cortana. By activating her and saying "Chase Mobile ATM", Cortana will launch the app and search for nearby ATMs. I imagine that the GroupMe developers can extend it in the same way: "GroupMe Send 'your message here'".
> It's important to note that the Cortana app itself is in beta
I would say that's a cop-out. If it's a headline feature, it's not a beta. It should work correctly (ignoring 3rd party apps having to update to integrate).
This applies to Apple as well. When they first announced Siri, they called it beta but it was the headline feature in all their ads.
If you add a weird little feature, I'm OK with the beta label. But you don't get a free pass on half-implemented or buggy software. You can't have it be a focus and say "but it's not ready".
(This isn't about Cortana, I haven't used it and can't comment on how complete it is. This is a general rant.)
Oh I agree, it shouldn't be advertised as a headline feature if it's not fully functional. I'm just pointing out that Microsoft considers Cortana to be in beta, and it's only available on the developer preview of the OS. With that in mind, it's possible that Cortana just isn't doing everything that it should be doing, and thereby isn't quite as useful as it could be.
As someone who uses Siri all the time, I can't wait unt Apple copies 3rd party app integration. There are a number of very small tasks I do repeatedly during any given week that Siri could easily take care of if integration points were available.
For example, my Chase Mobile app uses Cortana. By activating her and saying "Chase Mobile ATM", Cortana will launch the app and search for nearby ATMs. I imagine that the GroupMe developers can extend it in the same way: "GroupMe Send 'your message here'".