Microsoft appears to be working on a Surface Phone, if a post to a Chinese forum by an engineer working for the Microsoft Asia Research Institute is any indication.
The Chinese tech news website ITHome was the first to spot the post which claimed that the Surface Phone was on its way and that it would work much better with Cortana, the Microsoft digital assistant, than Android phones do.
The post was made on the Chinese social site Zhihu. It said that the Institute "look forward to the perfect performance of the Surface Phone”.
As an explanation, it added that some Cortana features on Android were limited because of restrictions in Google's mobile operating system.
After Windows Phone fans reacted enthusiastically over the post, the Microsoft employee, in what appeared to be damage control, edited it to add, "we don’t know a Surface Phone will exist”.
Another tech news site, Windows Latest, published a rough translation of the post which ran thus:
“First of all, Siri and Bixby, two intelligent assistants installed in the smartphones, and Cortana is a third-party application, permissions support may be embarrassing.
"Windows Phone users may know that Cortana in Windows Phone was better than the Cortana app, Windows Phone Cortana was a lot easier to use. Microsoft Cortana (Xiao Na) is a cross-platform smart assistant, available across all devices including PCs and smartphone, trying to do more like WeChat Noda.
"For the smart assistant, permissions is a good thing, looking forward to the perfect performance of the Surface Phone (although Hana do not know will not be a surface phone).
"Of course, as a smart assistant, the pace of development is still relatively slow, but Cortana team will be working hard to make the assistant better.
"Last year in 3rd-anniversary celebration, Cortana saw all new features and support, three years is not a long time, but the move on this road Hana never forget, Microsoft Cortana team must live up to expectations.“