Friday 4 September 2015

Best free voice assistants

Best free voice assistants

Personal voice assistants help you manage your day, perform searches and much more, without using your hands. Wayne Williams puts the top six tools to the test

Cortana


What we liked:
Friendlier than Siri and Google Now, Cortana is arguably the best reason to upgrade to Windows 10. You can summon her instantly in Microsoft’s new operating system simply by clicking the search button on the taskbar, or by saying “Hey, Cortana”, and then interact with her like a real person by asking her something or typing your request. When summoned, she’ll provide a handy visual summary of the top news, the current weather and more.


We especially like that Cortana has her own notebook to which you can add details about yourself to make her abilities and advice more personal to you. She also has an excellent reminder feature that’s very easy to use. Say something like, “Remind me to watch EastEnders at 7.30pm on Tuesday,” to create an instant reminder. You can also set alarms in the same way.

Creating and sending emails is equally straightforward. Just say “Send email to [person’s name]” and she’ll guide you through the process. We especially liked being able to launch programs in Windows 10 simply by asking Cortana to “Open [program name]”. She can even provide driving directions using the built-in Windows 10 maps, which is a brilliant touch.

Cortana had very few problems understanding us, and she definitely gets better at recognising your voice over time. There are some clever responses built into Cortana, too – she’ll sing songs or tell jokes when asked.

How it can be improved:
Cortana is tied very closely to Bing, which means the web results she produces aren’t as good as they would be using Google. We’d prefer it if she just used your browser’s default search engine instead.

OUR VERDICT
Cortana is efficient, able to do a lot of things very well and has an amusing personality, which we really liked. Every task we set, she handled without fuss.

Siri


What we liked:
Available on all iOS devices, Siri is the best known personal assistant and saves you a lot of tapping or swiping on your iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch. She can be easily summoned by holding down the Home button on your device or by saying “Hey, Siri” (you’ll need to set up this option in Settings first), which gives the impression that she’s always on hand to help, even though she lacks the personal approach of Cortana.

Setting up a reminder or an alarm, or creating an email, is very straightforward, and Siri can perform lots of other useful tasks including making calls, starting FaceTime chats, writing and sending messages, launching apps and adding events to your calendar. She’s also a great travel companion, because she can give you directions, share your location and play songs on your device, and keeps quiet for the rest of the time!

How it can be improved:
Although Siri is efficient, she lacks the fun personality of Cortana. Ask her to sing a song or tell a joke and she’ll politely decline. Siri struggled to understand us on occasion, and we often experienced long delays before she responded to basic questions.

OUR VERDICT
We’re fond of Siri but sometimes using her can be a frustrating experience. That said, she can handle a lot of tasks and relying on her soon becomes second nature.

Google Now


What we liked:
Available on Android and iOS, you can summon Google’s voice assistant by tapping the microphone button or by saying, “OK, Google”. This helpful virtual assistant can make phone calls, prepare and send messages, set reminders and alarms, and give you directions using Google Maps but, unlike Cortana and Siri, it doesn’t express much personality while doing so.

The big bonus is that the backbone of the service is Google, so the answers it provides to questions and web searches are always fast, thorough and reliable. We also found Google Now’s cardbased system very useful because it lets you view all sorts of relevant information, and cards appear when you need them. Google Now handily integrates with sites and apps you have installed, without requiring you to connect them manually, although this does raise concerns about who your data is being shared with.

How it can be improved:
There’s something snappy about the voice used by Google. She comes across as rather irritable and not in the slightest bit friendly. We had problems sending emails, with one recipient not found despite being in our contacts, and you have to say “subject” if you want your message to have a heading.

OUR VERDICT
Google Now doesn’t have the range of functions that Cortana and Siri have, and it could be a lot friendlier. But it uses Google’s services, which makes up for some of its shortcomings.


BEST OF THE REST


Robin

bit.ly/robin379

This Android personal assistant is designed to be used when you’re on the road and it can provide directions, answer questions, report the weather, give you the news, tell jokes and sing songs, and send messages or make calls. You can summon it by pressing a button, waving your hand over the phone, or by saying “Robin” or “OK, Robin”.

Maluuba

bit.ly/maluuba379

This voice assistant for Android can answer all sorts of questions, including sports-related queries such as the latest football scores. It can provide directions, set reminders, alarms and timers, add events to your calendar, make calls, play songs and more, although some features are a bit limited. Like Cortana, Maluuba uses Bing to provide the answers to questions it doesn’t know immediately.

ILA

bit.ly/ila379

ILA (Intelligent Learning Assistant) is a Java-based voice assistant that works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. To use it, you just have to unzip the contents of the download to a folder and run the Install file. You can then use it to launch system commands, open programs and web pages, start and stop timers, create emails and more. You can also teach it additional commands.