We know that Siri and the Google Assistant have a lot to say at the best of times.
But, because I'm working from home and practicing social distancing, rather than talk to myself, I thought maybe I should try talking to a voice assistant instead.
This is Google Assistant versus Siri.
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It's been a few years since we've compared these voice assistants and a lot has changed in that time.
So I wanted to see how Google Assistant 2.0 on a pixel four fared against Siri on IOS 13 running on an iPhone 11 Pro.
Now we know that both of these phones can do the basics like set timers, check the weather and all that if it can't, there's something seriously wrong.
Rather than start with all those fundamentals, I'm just going to assume they can do it and move on to some more complex phone controls, and then get progressively harder as we go up.
So let's go.
Turn on Bluetooth.
Turning Bluetooth on.
Turn on Bluetooth.
Okay, I turned on Bluetooth Change my wallpaper.
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Change my wallpaper.
Let's take a look at the wallpaper settings.
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Read this page out loud.
From CNET Netflix party how to sync movies to watch simultaneously with your friends.
Read this page out loud.
There's nothing to read.
Show me photos of dogs.
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Show me photos of dogs.
Send money to Rachel.
Okay, how much do you need to send?
$20.
Sure, $20 to Rachel.
Send money to Rachel.
Which app would you like to use transfer-wise, Vinmo or ApplePay?
Play Love is Blind on Netflix.
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Play Love is Blind on Netflix.
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A big upgrade to the Google Assistant since we last checked in is G Plex the technology that can make reservations for you either by checking an online reservation system That's nice singing automated cool.
Good evening.
Hello.
Hello.
Hi.
I'd like to reserve a table for Friday the third
And your name.
The first name is Daniel.
That's D-A-N-I-E- L.
Okay, you're all set.
Okay, great, thanks.
See you next Friday.
Okay, thank you.
Bye.>> So you can say things like this.
Make me a reservation at foreign cinema in San Francisco.>>All right, let's make a reservation at foreign cinema for how many?
One.
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Sure, for one person.
For when?
Tonight at 7 pm.
Cool foreign cinema restaurant.
I found one option, foreign cinema on Mission Street.
Is that the one you're looking for?
[SOUND]
Yes.
[SOUND] Calling +1-415-648-7600.
So while Siri can't yet make an automated call for you, it is now a lot more powerful thanks to Siri shortcuts.
You might have noticed notifications popping up on your screen prompting you to dial into say a morning meeting if that's recurring on your calendar.
Or telling you to leave at a certain time based on traffic depending on where your next meeting is.
There is also a big list of apps that are compatible with Siri shortcuts, this is one of my favorite sites that lists a whole lot of them.
So this is one task that I think Siri does really well compared to the Google Assistance.
Divide a $400 check five ways.
Calculating $400 with an 18% tip split five ways, the total is $94.40 per person.
Divide a $400 bill five ways.
Here are some results from a search.
Divide $400 by five.
The answer is at United States dollars.
What's the tip?
A 15% tip would be $60.
The Google Assistant can kind of get there but it's nowhere near as seamless as Siri.
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Okay, now let's see how each of them carps, we have a continued conversation.
Turn on continued conversation.
The Google Assistant has this setting that you will need to toggle on code continued conversation in the assistant settings.
So you'll be able to stream together and a lot of commands like this.
And it will know based on the contents of what you're looking for.
Show me Tom Cruise movies.
Tom Cruise's movies include Top Gun, Edge of Tomorrow, and 56 others.
What about the one from 2018?
Mission Impossible Fall Out Who else was in that movie?
The cast of Mission Impossible Fallout includes Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill and 17 others.
How much did it make it the box office?
Mission Impossible fallouts box office is $791,099,970.
Now Siri will also get there if you change your wording a little bit, but more often than not, you'll have to keep saying the wake word or touching the screen to keep it going.
Show me Tom Cruise movies from 2018
Here's one Tom Cruise movie released in 2018.
Who else was in Mission Impossible fall out?
Here's Mission Impossible Fallout.
How much money did Mission Impossible make?
The US box office gross for the 2018 movie Mission Impossible.
Fallout was about $220.2 million.
Now one of the big strengths of the google assistant is being able to string together a whole lot of unrelated commands when you are using continued conversation.
Take a look at this.
Open photos.
Find photos of food from 2019
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Turn on the flashlight, turn off the flashlight.
Open YouTube and find puppy videos, take a screenshot
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Send an email to Rachel.
Okay, do you want to email Rachel?
Now Siri can also string together a lot of unrelated commands using the shortcuts app.
On iOS.
It's a little bit like Google routines on the Assistant.
You can basically put together what seem to be unrelated commands and use one single voice prompt of your choosing to get it to start doing all of those commands.
This is one of my personal favorites, for now, it's called quarantine and chill.
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If you want that shortcut, let me know and I'll pop the link in the description below.
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So you might be wondering how each of these assistants go when it comes to controlling Smart home elements.
Unfortunately, this is not a smart home and these are really the only two smart devices that I have lying around.
So that will have to wait for another video.
Overall, the Google Assistant is more robust straight out of the box than Siri is, and it does seem to have the edge for most tasks Little like the results we saw in the previous years.
However, that's not to say Siri is a slouch because shortcuts really adds a lot more power to what Siri can do.
You just have to play around with it a bit more to get it just to your liking.
Also I will make sure to revisit this comparison when I was 14 comes out and the new version of Android as well because a lot might change when it comes to the voice assistant.
Thanks so much for watching.
Please stay safe and stay home if you can.
I'm gonna leave you with one last easter egg from the Google Assistant because it made me smile Help me wash my hands.
Wash, wash, wash your hands for 40 seconds please sample chase the germs away so you don't cough and sneeze.
