Roger Fingas
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.
"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.
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
Chip Loder
Malcolm Owen
18 Comments
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.
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...
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.