Transfer over, Siri. There's a brand new AI on the town threatening to take over your territory. Its identify is Perplexity.
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The most recent model of Perplexity's iPhone app introduces a brand new voice assistant designed to carry out a wide range of duties. Many of those duties are usually reserved for Siri, as they aren’t solely interactive however can even entry key info in your cellphone.
What you possibly can ask Perplexity
Similar to Siri, you possibly can ask Perplexity's voice assistant to set a reminder, schedule a calendar occasion, play a track from Apple Music, open a podcast, and get instructions by way of Apple Maps. Merely inform it to carry out any of those duties, and Perplexity will work together with the suitable app or characteristic and show the outcomes.
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For instance, ask Perplexity's voice assistant about your appointments for subsequent week. The AI will scan your calendar and each communicate and show your upcoming appointments. Ask it to set a reminder to take your cat to the vet tomorrow at 11 a.m., and it’ll add that process to Apple's Reminders app. Ask it for instructions to Faneuil Corridor in Boston, Massachusetts, and the AI will show a map of the route together with a hyperlink to open it in Apple Maps with turn-by-turn instructions.
The voice assistant can deal with different duties, similar to composing an e-mail, sending calendar invites, and reserving a trip with Uber. The primary time you ask it to carry out a system-level process, the AI will request permission to entry the particular knowledge, similar to your calendar, reminders, or contacts. After that, the method is often fast and seamless.
Annoyed with Siri
Perplexity's new talent is an try by an AI to tackle a few of Siri's capabilities. Usually, most AIs would not have this degree of entry to your iPhone, which is why you can not ask ChatGPT, Google Gemini, or Microsoft Copilot to play music out of your library, add a reminder, or entry your iPhone's calendar.
This new functionality additionally comes at a time when Apple customers have grown pissed off with Siri. Far too typically, Apple's voice assistant fails to know easy requests, misinterprets what you say, or just provides up as a substitute of serving to. Apple has been promising to reinforce and enhance Siri, however these efforts have been delayed repeatedly.
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Even with Perplexity's new energy, there are nonetheless many duties solely Siri can accomplish. For instance, once I requested Perplexity to ship a textual content message to somebody in my contacts, it responded that it can’t ship texts straight. Nonetheless, Perplexity's voice assistant is a powerful first try at tighter integration together with your knowledge.
The right way to strive the brand new voice assistant
To strive the brand new voice assistant, obtain and set up the Perplexity iOS app if you don’t have already got it. In any other case, ensure you are working the most recent model. Open the app and register together with your e-mail handle or your Apple or Google account. On the "Ask something" immediate, faucet the audio icon on the correct. You possibly can then communicate your request.
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To tweak the app, faucet the settings icon on the high. Right here, you possibly can flip subtitles on or off and swap between two totally different modes for speaking to the AI. It’s also possible to select from six totally different voices.
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