Google director hints at advanced Assistant tech coming to Apple's iPhone

AppleInsider

Google Assistant -- the chief rival to Apple's Siri -- could be coming to the iPhone and iPad in the future, a Google director hinted on Thursday.

Image Credit: Android Authority

"I do not think we have anything to announce at this point," said Google product management director Gummi Hafsteinsson at this week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, according to Geekster. "But I think the general philosophy is that we would like to have the Assistant available to as many people as possible."

The rules and architecture of iOS currently don't allow for integrated third-party voice assistants, but Google does have a suite of apps for the platform, and the company's core search app includes Assistant's predecessor, Google Now.

Assistant is typically considered more advanced than both that technology and Siri, in large part because it can interpret context for a more conversational approach. In a common example, users can ask "who is the President of the U.S" followed by related questions, such as "how old is he." Alternatives like Siri and Amazon's Alexa force users to treat every query separately.

Google Assistant debuted with a messaging app, Allo, but is now on the Google Home smartspeaker as well as the company's Pixel phones. Just this month the technology began reaching more Android devices, including smartwatches.

Apple has so far remained mute on rumored improvements that could make Siri more competitive. Any upgrades would likely be announced at the next Worldwide Developers Conference in June.

maestro64

Google is spend so much time and resources trying to get their foot back into the Apple eco-system. They could have had it all, if they did not decide to copy Apple. Steve was probably more than willing to allow Google to have complete access to the phone, but we know what happen to them. Apple consumers are the cream of the crop that Google wants. Apple user spend far more money that anyone else so advertisers really want to have access to those consumers. Just like Google Maps, just users put it on their phone, but the majority of user now use Apple maps.

volcan

AppleInsider said:
In a common example, users can ask "who is the President of the U.S" followed by related questions, such as "how old is he." Alternatives like Siri and Amazon's Alexa force users to treat every query separately.

Siri has been able to do that exact conversational query for a few years now.

lmagoo

I wouldn't buy a thing with Google's/Alphabet's name on it...same could be said of Samsung...I think their Enginerring teams got their degrees from a Cracker Jacks box...

ericthehalfbee

volcan said:

AppleInsider said:
In a common example, users can ask "who is the President of the U.S" followed by related questions, such as "how old is he." Alternatives like Siri and Amazon's Alexa force users to treat every query separately.

Siri has been able to do that exact conversational query for a few years now.

I remember when Siri first came out you could ask "What's the weather like in San Diego?" Then follow up with "How about San Francisco" and it would also get the weather. If I remember I thought it was part of the demo. 

cali

What I like about iOS is that it gets all services. Want cortana? You got it. Amazon or Google spyware? Just download. The others can only dream of FaceTime, Messages and others.

NY1822

yeah, right after i start using their messaging service over imessage

Polyphonie

In a common example, users can ask "who is the President of the U.S" followed by related questions, such as "how old is he." Alternatives like Siri and Amazon's Alexa force users to treat every query separately.

Actually, Siri does that. The feature is called Sequential Inference and with Siri you can ask "Who is the President of the United States?" and instead of asking "How old is the President of the United States?", you can do a follow up question of, "How old is she?" (To which the answer should be she's 69yo).

johnny mozzarella

volcan said:

AppleInsider said:
In a common example, users can ask "who is the President of the U.S" followed by related questions, such as "how old is he." Alternatives like Siri and Amazon's Alexa force users to treat every query separately.

Siri has been able to do that exact conversational query for a few years now.

Actually they cherry picked an example that doesn't work.  I was surprised it didn't work. 

volcan

Polyphonie said:
Actually, Siri does that. The feature is called Sequential Inference and with Siri you can ask "Who is the President of the United States?" and instead of asking "How old is the President of the United States?", you can do a follow up question of, "How old is she?" (To which the answer should be she's 69yo).

One thing Siri often gets wrong is pronunciation. When she answers the first question she says "From January 20, 2017 to the present" but she pronounces "present" as in "present a presentation."

volcan

johnny mozzarella said:

Actually they cherry picked an example that doesn't work.  I was surprised it didn't work. 

Who? I tried it just now and it works perfectly for me using Siri on my iPhone.

johnny mozzarella

cali said:

What I like about iOS is that it gets all services. Want cortana? You got it. Amazon or Google spyware? Just download. The others can only dream of FaceTime, Messages and others.

I have a love/hate relationship with Amazon and Google. But admittedly there are things they do really well and at some point I may be forced to interact with their digital assistants in order to do certain things. 
That is unless I can get Siri to do it. 
"Hey Siri, tell Alexa I need more shampoo."
"Hey Siri, tell Cortana to ask Alexa to Google 'disintermediation'"

Herbivore2

Google is about to get totally plastered by Apple. Intel has some developments in store that will allow Apple to build hardware that will leave Google speechless. Those developments may be available to Microsoft also. Since Google doesn't build their own hardware, they are going to be left out. 

Google needs to get their software back on Apple's hardware in a big way. But at this point most iOS users don't care. Facebook's app is more popular than any Google piece of software. Google could have been the software of default for iOS. Maps would be Google's. The search engine would be Google's. Even the digital assistant. But Apple has its own maps and Bing has a very large role. Schmidt decided to function as a spy and steal iOS instead. 

I don't care to install anything made by the spyware company on any of my devices. 

Rayz2016

volcan said:

johnny mozzarella said:

Actually they cherry picked an example that doesn't work.  I was surprised it didn't work. 

Who? I tried it just now and it works perfectly for me using Siri on my iPhone.

You're right. It does work. And you're also right about the weird pronunciation of "present". 

lsochrin

volcan said:

You're right. It does work. And you're also right about the weird pronunciation of "present". 

And it doesn't know how to pronounce the town Brookline in Massachusetts.  It should be "brook - line" but despite all my tries, Siri insists on pronouncing it "Brooklyn."  

GeorgeBMac

For me, there is one main reason for paying the Apple premium:   safety and security.

Google showed their hand 10 years ago when they drove around the world collecting private user WiFi data.  And, when confronted with criminal prosecution, claimed they didn't know that they had done it -- and didn't know that they still had those terabytes of stolen info on their servers.

Google exists to collect and sell your information.   So why would I pay a premium for an Apple device and then load it with Google spyware?

gatorguy

GeorgeBMac said:

For me, there is one main reason for paying the Apple premium:   safety and security.

Google showed their hand 10 years ago when they drove around the world collecting private user WiFi data.  And, when confronted with criminal prosecution, claimed they didn't know that they had done it -- and didn't know that they still had those terabytes gigabytes of stolen info on their servers.

Google exists to collect and sell your use your information for ad placement.   So why would I pay a premium for an Apple device and then load it with Google spyware on top of the spyware that I load from the App Store on top of the spyware from the websites I visit?

Yup, that was a very poorly constructed and managed project and not at all handled well when it became a public issue. IMO Google might not have factually lied in explaining it, but I agree it was close enough to be accused of doing so. It was at least unquestionably misleading.

Anyway while what they did wasn't illegal it certainly was not a good idea no matter what some engineer(s) thought. That's where good managers should have stepped in before it ever got off the ground, but apparently did not.  Wired did a really good write-up sometime after the fact.
https://www.wired.com/2012/05/google-wifi-fcc-investigation/

seany67

I've been with Apple since the beginning. The abysmal performance of Siri is extremely vexing when compared to Google's voice recognition.  Google rarely gets a word wrong and seems much more intelligent in it's results. Siri, on the other hand can rarely pick up what I'm saying. It's a shame that Apple lags so far behind Google's voice recognition, especially when they want to build emerging technologies with Siri as it's main input. I really wish they can get better in this respect-for me it's almost unusable.
I use CarPlay as well with similar poor results. Time to up the game, I know many many people who are lifelong Apple users who are as frustrated as I am with this.

SpamSandwich

Polyphonie said:

In a common example, users can ask "who is the President of the U.S" followed by related questions, such as "how old is he." Alternatives like Siri and Amazon's Alexa force users to treat every query separately.

Actually, Siri does that. The feature is called Sequential Inference and with Siri you can ask "Who is the President of the United States?" and instead of asking "How old is the President of the United States?", you can do a follow up question of, "How old is she?" (To which the answer should be she's 69yo).

Why would you ask "How old is SHE"?