I love Artificial Intelligence, Iron Man’s Jarvis, Apple’s Siri, Google Assistant, Microsoft’s Cortana. While watching the 2016 Google I/O, I saw a glimpse of Google’s Assistant for Android and I decided to put it to the test.
That’s a really cute Assistant.
I picked up my Infinix Hot3 began setting up the Assistant.
To set it up, you need to perform a voice recognition test so the Assistant can identify you from other people, which I find pretty good when you think about this Amazon fiasco Alexas order dollhouses from TV.
After the voice recognition process, you can activate the Assistant by either tapping the Google Mic icon in the search bar or saying the keyword, “Ok Google”- which I find awkward saying when my dad is around. After setting it up you can begin using the Assistant.
Here are a few things you can do with the Google Assistant, keep in mind, this requires good network assess.
- Setting an Alarm: This is one of the best and easiest use of the Assistant. To settle alarm, activate the assistant by either tapping the mic or by saying the keyword “Ok Google”, followed by “Set alarm for 9 a.m” or what ever time you want. It is very simple. Unfortunately, the assistant can not delete an existing alarm.
- Opening Apps: You can open apps by saying “Open my ‘app name‘”. This instruction would only work if the app is already installed on your phone. If it isn’t, the Assistant will run a Google search on the app.
- Playing music: Music is one thing I enjoy so much. So imagine my delight when Google Assistant can play my favourite tracks without me touching my phone. To play music, just say “Play ‘song title'”, for example: “Play Glory”. The Assistant automatically opens the Play Music App, searches for the song titled ‘Glory’ and plays it. Sadly, because the speaker is so close to the mic, you can’t give any voice instructions until you turn off the music.
- Adding events to your calendar: Just like setting an alarm, creating an event on your calendar is easy. Activate the Assistant and say, “Create an event at ‘the time‘ ‘the day‘”. The Assistant will ask what label (title) you’d like to give the event.
If you want to save a meeting with Henry for tomorrow at 10 a.m, this is how the conversation will go:
You: “Create an event for 10 a.m tomorrow”.
Google Assistant: “What label do you want for the event”.
You: “Meeting with Henry”
Google Assistant: “Would you like to save it?”
You: “Yes”.
and it’s done. You could cancel the event by saying “No, delete.” or correct it by saying “No, edit the event” when it asks to save the event.
So, there you have it. The Google Assistant is quite good, although not as good as Apple’s Siri. You could also get soccer scores by simply asking “Southhampton VS Liverpool”, cooking sites, movie reviews and all the information on the internet via the Assistant.
For bonus points you could play games and chat with the Assistant by downloading the Google Allo app when you are bored. Have fun testing it out and tell us some features you discover.