There’s great news for fans of Google Assistant with an iPhone: for the first time, iOS users can now access the smart assistant using a verbal command.
The solution is a little bit convoluted, but it’s a world better than the previous way of opening it. Here’s what you can do.
Hey Siri, Okay Google
Thanks to a new update, Google Assistant now supports Siri Shortcuts. This means that you can record a phrase such as “Okay, Google,” which will open the Google Assistant app on command. You’ll still need to say “Hey Siri, Okay Google,” but it nonetheless represents a big step forward.
In today’s lazy world, one of the big determining factors in whether or not we use a technology is how easy it is to access it. In my view, this is especially true when it comes to smart assistants. If you have to manually open an app by scrolling around your homepage and tapping on an app to open it, you may as well manually look up the answer to whatever question you’re asking.
This was one of my big problems with Siri in the days when you had to perform a long touch on your iPhone Home button to access it. While this wasn’t exactly hard to do, it also didn’t have the seamless quality of simply being able to ask your question. As a result, I used it far less than I use AI assistants today.
If you’ve not tried Google Assistant, I’d highly recommend it. For my money, it’s the best of the virtual assistants on the market today, and blows Siri away in terms of performance.
It first launched on iOS back in 2017. For anyone who uses a Google Home smart speaker, Assistant offers a lot of the same functionality — whether it’s answering questions, ordering takeout, controlling smart devices in your home, and whatever else. You can download it for free from the App Store here.
Via: The Verge
