Siri is struggling. It is struggling to reply to easy questions or create easy calendar occasions. And the tip nonetheless is not in sight, now that Apple has largely delayed Apple Intelligence’s “smarter Siri” till the tip of the 12 months.
In the meantime, Perplexity AI’s new Voice Assistant is right here now, attempting to capitalize on Apple’s mess. Along with answering questions, the AI’s new Voice Mode is ready to create calendar occasions and reminders, play music, and extra. It will possibly maintain conversations, and even carry out some web-based duties. These are issues that Siri simply cannot do, no less than not but.
How one can use Perplexity Voice Assistant on iOS
Obtain and open the newest model of the Perplexity app. Within the Ask Something bar, you will see an animated Waveform icon to the precise. That is the shortcut to the Voice Assistant.
Credit score: Khamosh Pathak
Merely faucet on it and begin talking. Perplexity will present an animation once you’re talking, and when it is responding to you. There’s additionally an choice to Mute the microphone for longer chats.
That is extra of a conversational house, so you may maintain speaking as Perplexity responds. Faucet the Gear icon up prime for settings. Right here, you may disable the transcript characteristic, or allow a push to speak mode. You can even change the Assistant’s voice.
The Voice Mode works within the background, and solely stops once you hit the X button within the app. So you can begin the Voice Mode, swap to a special app, and proceed speaking to Perplexity within the background, if you want.
Credit score: Khamosh Pathak
For faster entry, it is best to add the Medium Perplexity widget to your house display, because it has a shortcut to the Voice Mode. Alternately, you may create a shortcut and add it to your Dwelling display, Lock display, Management Middle, and even the Motion button (to set that up, observe this information.)
What Perplexity Does higher than Siri
Perplexity integrates straight with Apple’s default apps like Calendar, Reminders, Mail, Contacts, and extra. So long as you give it permission, Perplexity can add occasions to your calendar, remind you of one thing, and even draft emails and textual content messages.
Because it stands, Perplexity additionally has a greater information base than Siri, because it’s linked to the online. So asking one thing like “when was the Pixel 4a launched” brings up an instantaneous response, whereas asking Siri requires a affirmation through ChatGPT.
In my testing, I discovered Perplexity was dependable at creating calendar occasions and reminders, greater than I typically get with Siri.
Credit score: Khamosh Pathak
Drafting an e mail exhibits a stark distinction between the 2 approaches. I used the identical immediate with each Siri and Perplexity: Draft an e mail asking Pranay if he is up for a Pickleball match this weekend. Siri took this actually, and drafted an e mail saying “if he is up for a Pickleball match this weekend.” That is it. Perplexity, alternatively, expanded this right into a coherent sentence, added a Topic, and confirmed a compose field. All that was left for me to do was swap out my title and hit Ship (Siri additionally does not ship an e mail with out your affirmation).
Credit score: Khamosh Pathak
My expertise with textual content messaging was extra iffy. Perplexity could not simply draft a message to Pranay, regardless that I gave it full entry to my contacts (for those who do not wish to do this, you may dictate the e-mail handle or the telephone quantity as an alternative). Hopefully, it is a day-one problem and will get sorted out in a while.
Perplexity’s Voice Assistant also can play music straight from Apple Music, utilizing voice instructions. And since Perplexity integrates with YouTube, it is fairly fast when discovering YouTube movies. I requested it to discover a soothing video in regards to the hidden artwork of ceramics in Japan, and in a few seconds, Perplexity began enjoying the video contained in the app.
What do you assume to this point?
What Perplexity Does that Siri simply cannot do
Perplexity’s Voice Assistant can converse with you with ease. There is a very clean forwards and backwards, the place the assistant remembers the main points that you simply requested earlier than, is aware of the context to your prompts, and replies accordingly. It merely does not must ask follow-up questions.
Credit score: Khamosh Pathak
That is nice for asking normal questions, and for studying issues. As a substitute of a 500 phrase response, Perplexity’s AI assistant will provide you with a few sentences and can immediate you to ask additional, typically even supplying you with clues about what you would possibly wish to ask about subsequent.
Perplexity can take actions on the net too, thought it’s important to be the one to take the ultimate motion, which is honest (and, actually, appreciated).
For instance, I requested Perplexity to e book a desk at White Olive at 8 PM in New York Metropolis, and it opened Open Desk with all these particulars already stuffed in. I needed to affirm the main points, and end the reserving myself. Then, I requested if Perplexity can name me an Uber, and it opened the Uber app with the placement of the White Olive restaurant mapped in.
These are the issues that Siri with Apple Intelligence is meant to have the ability to do for you, however we cannot see these options till no less than the tip of the 12 months, and we do not know how precisely they are going to work.
It is the transparency and consistency that issues
In my restricted hands-on testing, I seen that Perplexity’s responses have been extra constant than Siri’s, and since Voice Mode stays energetic by default, I requested nuanced questions with out feeling like I must hurry myself, like I do with Siri.
Siri is usually nice, and typically it simply does not reply. Perplexity takes care of that problem. In fact, there have been occasions with Perplexity ran right into a wall, like with my textual content messaging query. Right here too, it calmly informed me it wasn’t capable of accomplish the duty, and that it might attempt once more if I needed. Hopefully, these small points will get sorted out with extra updates.
In fact, Perplexity cannot exchange Siri within the true sense, as a result of Apple will not permit for it. Solely Siri can entry OS degree options like altering toggles, settings, calling somebody, replying to textual content messages, setting alarms, and so forth. However for all the opposite issues, for those who’re feeling annoyed with the constraints of Siri, Perplexity’s Voice Assistant is certainly price a attempt.
