After two months of not adding anything new to the list of deprecated features, Microsoft has added another feature to the list of features that will eventually be removed from its Windows 11 operating system.
This time, it is the Location History feature that has been put on the list by Microsoft.
Microsoft says that it is an API that was used by Cortana to “access 24 hours of device history when location was enabled”. With Cortona no longer playing a role at Microsoft, it is put to rest as well.
As far as the effect of the removal is concerned, Microsoft notes that location data will “no longer be saved locally”. Furthermore, the corresponding settings under Settings > Privacy & Security > Location will also be removed in the process.
The option to clear the Location history in the Settings will be removed.
As always, Microsoft does not say when it plans to remove the feature exactly. Best guess is that it could be removed as part of the 2025 feature update for Windows 11. For now though, it remains available on Windows 11 devices.
The end of Cortana
Back in 2023, Microsoft announced that it would retire the Cortana application for Windows later that year. The personal assistant Cortana was created at a time when personal assistants were en vogue. Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa were popular services back when Microsoft created its personal assistant.
Microsoft removed Cortana in Teams and other apps in the fall of 2023 and several other Cortana-related features in 2024 in favor of AI. It is rather funny that Cortana’s Windows-specific features have been more powerful than those of Microsoft’s AI Copilot.