As the smartphone field becomes more competitive, manufacturers are racing to match each other’s services more than ever. It’s great for us as consumers, as tech firms hotly contest the unique selling points in the form of new technologies. One that, although relatively infant, is becoming more impressive with each new model is voice control software.
These are frequently referred to as personal assistants, as they can manage your schedule, set reminders, send messages and schedule phone-calls for you. At first, I was rather sceptical myself, as I wouldn’t want to entrust the management of my important daily tasks to an AI, however helpful it may be. But the technology has come on leaps and bounds since its first incarnation.
In the current market, industry leaders Microsoft, Apple, and Google all have voice control software that has gained an almost equal footing. As I keep a keen interest in all things electronic, I realised I had access to each piece of software, so here follows some tests I conducted on the three programmes to determine which one is worthy of your investment.
Google Now
Google’s personal assistant software was released in 2012, and now comes standard with every Android device, ranging beyond smartphones onto digital cameras and gaming devices. The technology uses existing Google software such as maps, search, and docs to provide users with an easily accessible range of features, which crucially can be tweaked or managed individually from the standalone phone apps. Google Now is also available on iOS, giving it a market-share advantage over the platform exclusive Cortana and Siri.
For each phone, I first tested the inbuilt microphone in a range of settings, such as my quiet living room and in a busy and noisy restaurant. I also tested compatibility with third-party microphones using a set of Plantronics headsets as these are what I use most of the time. The voice recognition software is pretty solid and managed to understand most of my commands even in the busiest locations.
Perhaps one of Google Now’s main problems in its current state is its over-reliance on Google apps and software. Not that we should be surprised, as Google tightly integrates most of its services these days, but even Siri offers third-party software integration with a range of camera and music apps, and it’s made by Apple, who are the purveyors of walled gardens on technology.
Cortana
Cortana is the relatively recent result of Microsoft’s mobile market overhaul. After having recently purchased Nokia, the tech behemoth has had problems competing against the Android and Apple dominated marketplace, and the Microsoft phone platform has yet to find its footing. This being said, Cortana is an impressive and immersive piece of software, and if it represents the future of Microsoft mobile technologies, I think a market share increase could be very possible.
Cortana has an excellent interface, providing quick and easy results through Bing integrated search, and excellent responses to a range of useful voice commands. It works well-enough through the built-in microphone, but strangely doesn’t support any external devices, so the headset was useless during field tests. The software has some trouble picking up my speech in noisy areas, but request can also be keyed in via the touchscreen.
From my field tests, I felt that Cortana made best use of location services. As well as providing up-to-date weather information based on your GPS locations, Cortana can also direct you to highly rated establishments such as bars, restaurants, and local entertainment, which is perfect if you’re a visitor. Another great feature is location based reminders; whilst most smartphones set reminders based on a pre-determined time, Cortana can give you a reminder based your location. I tested this by setting a reminder to pick up milk, set the location to the Tesco around the corner and walked down, and sure enough I got the reminder on cue.
Siri
Apple’s pioneering voice command software Siri kicked off the whole craze of smartphone personal assistants, but was also met with a high level of scrutiny following announcement in 2011. Siri is a highly flexible piece of software, utilising a broad range of third party websites, including Yahoo! Wikipedia, and even Google, as well as apps to provide users with a wealth of information and features, all quickly accessible from the Siri interface.
Siri functions through a minimalistic interface, never pre-empting the user request. This is great at times, but frustrating sometimes as I used the programme to perform the same functions daily, but you would never know it. I guess we are so used to software having history functions it just seemed a bit off. The in-built microphone is excellent as picking up dictation in almost any settings, I even used it whilst watching a band and it picked up every word. Siri also has external microphone capabilities, so it’ll work great with a headset.
If you use the programme frequently, you’ll notice that Siri sometimes takes a long time to provide an answer or log a request. This can be frustrating sometimes, along with the fact that the software has very little offline support and sometimes can’t be used in poor service areas. This being said, Siri compensates by providing a broader wealth of more useful features through widespread online integration; you can check train times and book tickets right away, or see who performed a particular song and download it to your phone.
Conclusions
The technology for these services is picking up gradually, so it could be said that these programmes offer just a glimpse of the future capabilities of AI personal assistants. Soon, they’ll be remembering every detail of our lives and know more about us than our closest friends and family.
Until then, Siri, Google Now, and Cortana are excellent services, each offering unique advantages that I believe will suit different people.
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