The Best / Worst Mobile Intelligent Personal Assistant

Posted on March 25th, 2017 by Quertime Writer in Mobile

Technological advancements are not only making new gadgets available but are also allowing programmers and tech-savvy individuals to introduce exciting features in existing gadgets. These features are not only making human lives more entertaining but easier as well.

The productivity levels are on a rise due to these advancements and exceptional introductions by IT experts. One of the greatest inventions of history that made mobile phones and other devices extremely exciting and convenient is the personal assistant installed in all operating systems.

A personal assistant literally means a person who assists you in every task you want to perform to save time and improve efficiency. Personal assistants like Siri in iOS and Cortana in Windows have made the electronic gadgets very useful and fun. While the way these personal assistants operate is more or less same but each one is unique from the other in some way.

Currently, there are four major personal assistants popular in the market including Siri by Apple, Google Assistant by Google, Alexa by Amazon and Cortana by Windows. Users have different opinions about which one is the best but following are some ways through which we can decide which one wins the race and which one loses:

1. Traffic information

Upon inquiring about the traffic towards a destination, Alexa proved to be the worst because it only revealed an estimation of one specific address at a time. Cortana was relatively better because it showed a full widget that contained information about the destination but directions had to be opened up manually. However, the best response was from Siri and Google Assistant as both provided a clear verbal explanation about the route and estimated time to reach the destination. Comparatively, Google Assistant won the race.

2. Travelling ease

One of the most popular reasons behind people using personal assistants is so that they do not have to use their phones while driving or traveling. Upon inquiring about directions for a specific location, Google Assistant immediately revealed the route on Google Maps within seconds. On the other hand, Alexa only identified the place and revealed details about its location rather than showing the map. Cortana was relatively better as it did opened Windows Maps after some manual work. Siri stands right after Google Assistant as it was more or less the same as Google but a bit less convenient.

3. Booking cabs

Another feature of personal assistants is that you can book your rides through them without having to do manual work. Upon trying to book a cab, Google Assistant proved to be the worst but Siri was exceptionally smooth. Without any interruptions, a cab was booked by Siri and quite surprisingly, Cortana was almost equally convenient in this task. Alexa too was not very bad. So Siri takes the award here.

4. New email notification

People tend to subscribe on so many websites and platforms that their emails get flooded with new content every day. In order to save time, they usually ignore the useless messages and after some time, this becomes a problem because then it is difficult to figure out new emails that are unread. With personal assistants, you can ask for recent new emails but upon trying it was revealed that only Siri was able to respond accurately by listing unread messaged since past one day. Google Assistant showed a few very old emails while Cortana could not even recognize the command!

5. Writing an email

It might not be possible for someone working in the client services department to type emails all the time while driving. Such jobs require immediate response and hence personal assistants could be a blessing in this case. Google Assistant and Siri are both amazing for this task as they can immediately recognize the message you dictate and send it to the recipient. However, the reason why Google Assistant takes the lead here is the fact that it uses Gmail for this purpose which is apparently more popular than Apple Mail. Alexa, on the other hand, failed miserably to even recognize the question!

6. Reading the last email

Quite often, there are instances when you need to read the last email to confirm what was written in it or what instructions were given. You may also just need to know the time of email and cannot use your phone for some reason. Personal assistants can help with this and upon asking if they can read the last email, Siri takes the lead. It immediately read the senders name, date, subject and message unlike Google Assistant who just opened the last two messages instead of reading them. Alex failed as it opened Bling Search to search for the command!

7. Sending text message

This is a less complicated task but used most of the time by people. Text messaging is very common and people use it every now and then to communicate with friends and family. When testing the personal assistants on their response to sending a text message, it turned out that only Alexa had some third-party ways instead of a direct text message while Siri, Cortana and Google Assistant were equal in their performance. They immediately recognized the recipient and dictated message that was ready to be sent.

8. Match scores

One instance where Cortana failed while the rest were successful was when asked about a match score during the match. Siri, Google Assistant and Alexa all simply told the score but Cortana opened up the articles related to that match on search engines! It happens in some instances and it does not mean that Cortana is all bad as a personal assistant.

So while every personal assistant has their own capabilities and shortcomings, it is difficult to say which one is the best or worst. However, given the experiments above, competition seems tough between Google Assistant and Siri for the best personal assistant. The reason why Siri would be termed as the best personal assistant is that it apparently has more features than any other assistant that are not only useful but entertaining as well.

For the worst personal assistant, it is unfair to name one but for the sake of it, Alexa seems to be the most unpopular and less useful than all other personal assistants. Since the competition was between Cortana and Alexa, Cortana is surely a better one as Microsoft has improved Cortana greatly over time.

Author: Ruby Madeley

Ruby Madeley is the innovation analyst at a software house and game development company in New York, not just this but when she asked by someone to do assignment projects via QuickAssignmentHelp.co.uk , She is the best person to motivate youth.