We now have more virtual assistant applications that ever before. The Google Assistant better known as Siri for android, Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa, Samsung Bixby and Microsoft Cortana are the top-level virtual assistants that we have in the market currently.
These virtual assistants are not only aimed to ease your day-to-day tasks but are an integral part of a variety of smart products that are sold out there and the use of these virtual assistants are marketed heavily to sell the products that they feature in.
Therefore, it is important to know about the best virtual assistant application among these as that will also directly judge the best products that feature the best virtual assistant application. So to help you out in finding the best virtual assistant application out there, today we are here with a comparison of Google Assistant vs Apple Siri vs Samsung Bixby vs Amazon Alexa vs Microsoft Cortana.
Read on with the article below to find the best virtual assistant application out there as of now.
Google Assistant vs Apple Siri vs Samsung Bixby vs Amazon Alexa vs Microsoft Cortana
The first thing to know when it comes to the virtual assistant applications mentioned in this comparison is that even though some of these are available across many platforms, all of them are specially designed to work best on their own ecosystem.
For example, the Google Assistant works best on Android devices, Apple Siri works best on iOS devices and so on.
With that in mind, let us begin with the comparison of the best virtual assistant applications of 2017.
Basic Questions:
The basic sets of questions are something that every virtual assistant application of current time excels in. Questions that are based on your current location like the weather or attractions near your location, information on something or someone, questions on calculation etc., comes under the category of basic questions are can be handled by all the virtual assistants except Samsung Bixby.
The Samsung Bixby virtual assistant seems to have some trouble when processing basic questions. Unless the question is provided in a proper legible context, Bixby seemed to have an issue in processing the query. However, as Samsung Bixby is found on Samsung Galaxy lineup of Android devices, you can also alternatively use Google Search within Bixby to find results for your queries, which in turn is an indirect way of using the Google Assistant for Android.
Simple Tasks:
Virtual assistants are also capable in performing simple tasks on the device in which it is featured. Tasks like setting a reminder, calling a person or launching a third-party application installed on your device etc., can be done using these virtual assistant applications.
It is to be noted that the Amazon Alexa could not perform tasks like setting a timer or getting the latest stock prices as Alexa does not support these functions as of now. Even Samsung's Bixby had issues while answering to questions related to stock prices. As the Amazon Alexa and Samsung Bixby are relatively newer virtual assistant applications, we expect a few future updates should cover these short comings for these applications.
Complex Tasks:
Under complex tasks, the queries and commands given would require the virtual assistant to co-ordinate with the third-party applications installed on your device. This is actually what a virtual assistant should be capable of doing in any device. Commands given include booking a cab using an app installed on your device, launching specific web pages using the browser installed on your device and also commands that ask the virtual assistants to install specific applications from the respective app markets on to the device.
Even though the virtual assistant applications in comparison today were able to resolve and respond to some of the complex commands that were given, neither of the applications were able to respond to all the commands either because they lacked the integration with the third-party application that was needed to execute the command or because that the commands would only work on specific platforms.
For example, Samsung Bixby and Microsoft Cortana did not have integration with the Philips Hue application that allows you to change the color of the Philips Hue LED. The Apple Siri virtual assistant can order food for you but this feature is location specific and will not work everywhere. Google Assistant can book a cab and also order food to your current location, but weirdly these features are only supported when used through the Google Home device.
Amazon Alexa on the other hand, was able to respond to almost all the commands given.
Final Words:
If we were to rank the virtual assistant applications tested today, then the first place would go to Google Assistant, followed by Apple Siri, Microsoft Cortana, Amazon Alexa and Samsung Bixby.
The Google Assistant and Apple Siri being the older players when it comes to virtual assistant applications have an edge over all the other apps. Mainly because of the tight third-party app integration and also because of the huge customer base that uses these virtual assistants on a daily basis for many years now, thus helping these apps to improve.
Microsoft Cortana, Amazon Alexa and Samsung Bixby, being newer virtual assistants lacks the huge customer base that the above two apps have but still offer a very satisfying performance and as time passes by, we can see a tight competition between these applications thus offering a better and more advanced virtual assistance.
