Love them or hate them, virtual assistants are here to stay. After Apple announced Siri, Google’s Now service and Microsoft’s recently-unveiled Cortana, BlackBerry too has decided to jump into the pack and announce its new “BlackBerry Assistant”.
The feature will come with the upcoming BlackBerry 10.3 OS update and will debut on the squarish Passport device.
You interact with it in the usual methods and it does all the tasks you would expect. Not everything is known, but you can take phone calls, set up appointments, update your status, change settings and the lot.
It can read your messages aloud to you when you’re driving. Following the Google way, there are supposedly a few Easter eggs built-in. We’re yet to see how clever they are.
The assistant learns more of your habits the more you live with it and will offer its own suggestions as well. Of course, an advantage which Passport will give you will be the option to type on the trademark keyboard as well, something which Siri (and most others for that matter) can’t make use of.
We don’t know if it is as fun as Siri and Cortana; there is currently no word on whether you can hear a knock knock joke from it, but BlackBerry is sure that the assistant is at least more accurate than its current competitors.
The v10.3 update should bring the feature to other BlackBerry devices too. It certainly isn’t going to change the fortunes of the platform on its own, but should further bridge the gap between BlackBerry and its rivals.
No word as to when you should expect the update on your phone.
Better it to Be BlackBerry SIRI-PAYE