Microsoft Surface Earbuds will support all the third-party voice assistants along with Cortana

Earlier today Microsoft announced the new Surface Earbuds. The Surface Earbuds will be coming to the market later this year and will cost $249. While Microsoft did talk about a lot of its features, the company didn’t mention one of the major advantages of Surface Earbuds.

According to VentureBeat who got some face time with the product lead of Surface Earbuds, Mohammed Samji. He noted that the earbuds will support all the third-party voice assistants apart from Microsoft’s Cortana. So users will be able to use Google Assistant or Siri or stick with Cortana. If you have multiple voice assistants on your device, the Surface Earbuds will pick up your default assistant.

On PC, it launches Cortana. On iOS, it will launch Siri, unless you’ve changed it. And I think it might vary depending on the distribution of Android, but all the ones I’ve tested, the first time I do it, Android asks me what I want as my default.

– Mohammed Samji

Earlier today, we reported that Microsoft had filed a patent for Surface Audio. Mohammed Samji confirmed that Surface Audio is the companion app for the Surface Earbuds. The app will be available on Google Play Store, Apple iTunes Store and Microsoft Store.

Everything about this product is about user choice. If you want to use Android, iOS, or Windows, we support that. But we also want to make sure if you want to use Cortana, we make it super simple.

– Mohammed Samji

The Surface Audio app will allow users to customize Earbuds such as the equalizer, volume, and gestures. Moreover, you will also need the app to update the Surface Earbuds firmware. Samji emphasised that the Earbuds work even if you’re not tech-savvy and don’t care about assistants and other features. “If you don’t want to use Cortana, you don’t have to use it. If you don’t want the app, you don’t have to have it. It just works.”