In 2011, Apple made a new revolution - their smartphone spoke up. The advent of Siri ushered in a new era of gadget management. People were able to turn to their gadgets as a person, asking them for important (and not so) information. You can now find out the weather, reminders and fresh mail without going from application to application. Naturally, other technology companies and smartphone manufacturers could not stay away and decided to show similar solutions, to different degrees, better or worse than Siri. In this article, we’ll talk about the best Siri counterparts for Android, how far progress has made and what these peers are capable of.
Google now
Despite the fact that the Google Now service is different from other voice assistants, it is still considered an analogue of Siri for Android. Google Now is an artificial intelligence living on your phone that knows everything about your interests, business, upcoming flights and calendar events. In addition to the function of a secretary, Google Now does an excellent job of finding information on the Web. The OK team, Google has already become a cult and helps millions of people find answers to their questions daily. Google Now is able to collect your search queries and display relevant information based on them. For example, you recently searched for tickets for a match of your favorite team. In this case, Google Now will start sending you cards with information about the upcoming game, other team games and their success in the tournament.
Google assistant
"Assistant" is a new stage in the development of Google Now. This is Siri for Android in the best performance. The assistant is not only smarter than his predecessor, but also much more functional. With it, you can create reminders, calendar events and send messages. Want to kick rock on the way to work? Ask “Assistant” to include you in the TOP of the best tracks in the genre and he will make the perfect playlist for you.
Do not understand what kind of word is written on the sign? Ask the “Assistant” to translate it into your language, because he is excellent in the role of a linguist and knows more than 100 languages.
Is this not enough? "Assistant" will help you communicate in instant messengers, picking up words, dates and contact information for you when asked about it. And “Assistant” can joke, tell a story or give advice on where it is better to put a cabinet.
Cortana
Microsoft has recently been famous for its endless (and unsuccessful) attempts to catch up with opponents by introducing similar features into its competitors' devices and gadgets. Microsoft did not hesitate to make a certain analogue of “Siri” for “Android”. Her name is Cortana (this is a reference to one of the characters in the game Halo). In fact, this assistant is almost no different from competitors. Microsoft made an attempt to sit on two chairs at once, so the interface has smart cards that adapt to a specific user, and a humane interlocutor who creates a feeling of live communication.
In fact, the assistant is not too smart, she will have to submit almost all the information manually. She is unlikely to ever find out your interests and desires, if only because for this you need to use Microsoft services and no others. On the other hand, if you spend some time with Cortana and teach it, then it starts sending out very useful notifications, for example, showing inexpensive restaurants near you, the latest movie news coming to cinemas in your city. Cortana will also remind you of the shopping list when you go to the store or show the weather forecast for the coming week.
Bixby
So who really had to copy the ideas of competitors for a long time was Samsung. In 2017, along with the Galaxy S8, Korean engineers showed us their own developments in the field of artificial intelligence, which was called the unusual name Bixby. Interestingly, Bixby is not just an analogue of Siri for Android. This is a whole complex of self-learning services, ready to give tips throughout the day and find useful information. The functionality is not much different from the "Google Assistant" and Siri itself, so let's talk about the important differences.
First, Bixby understands context and has cognitive tolerance. That is, if you asked him who Marlon Brando is, and then, in which films he starred without mentioning the name, then Bixby, after analyzing your dialogue, will understand who he is talking about. Secondly, Bixby is able to search for information from the camera. This means that it’s enough to point it at some thing or object - and Bixby will immediately tell you everything about it that the Internet knows about it.
“Yandex. Alice"
Well, the last analogue of “Siri” for “Android” in Russian is “Alice”. Yandex has long been developing the idea of artificial intelligence and speech recognition, so it was clear that sooner or later such a project would see the light of day. Alice knows everything that other helpers can do, but at the same time she’s adapted to the Russian market and is looking for information in Yandex services. Alice, like Bixby, understands the context, but only in certain topics. In most cases, she is able to answer only one question. Alice can sing a song for you or make a funny joke if you become bored, and may look for important information on Wikipedia without forcing you to go on searching and the article itself. Not without mistakes in pronunciation, but given that Yandex is still a domestic company, you can be sure that all the shortcomings will be quickly corrected.