Google Assistant's New Update with Useful Siri Shortcuts

Teknologi.id - Google has rolled out a new update for the Google Assistant app for iOS which takes advantage of Siri Shortcuts to make it more useful. The update adds a useful new Siri Shortcut support using which one can use Siri to trigger Google Assistant. So yes, you can say “Hey Siri” followed by “Ok Google” to trigger Assistant handsfree on your iPhone. Google is making use of Siri Shortcuts to bring an almost handsfree and native Assistant experience to iPhone, something which it has been offering on Android devices for years now. Google Assistant is unarguably smarter and more feature rich than Siri but it always felt crippled on an iPhone due to various platform limitations. Using Siri Shortcuts, Google is at least removing one such limitation.

Once you update the Google Assistant app from iOS App Store, open the app on your iPhone. You will automatically see a card prompting you to add an “Ok Google” Siri Shortcut. Tap on the ‘Add to Siri’ button and then proceed to record the voice phrase that you want to use to trigger Google Assistant. You can use “Ok Google” or “Hey Google” or any other voice phrase you want. Once done, you can trigger Assistant by simply saying “Hey Siri” followed by the voice phrase you recorded. Google Assistant will then pop up ready to accept your commands. Google Assistant supports far more smart home devices and has integration with other services when compared to Siri so this shortcut is definitely going to be useful for many. You can even set this shortcut up to directly trigger a routine in Google Assistant where multiple commands are essentially executed at once. Apple is unlikely to make iOS as flexible as Android but with Siri Shortcuts, it is at least trying to provide a workaround to users for some common issues with the platform. (DWK)