There's a new voice assistant in town, and it's called Cortana. With the release of the Windows Phone 8.1 developer preview today, Cortana is in public hands for the first time. It's new to the Windows Phone kids, but Cortana arrives to competition from not only Siri but also Google Now. So what's the best way to check it out? Why, with a head to head, of course!
Daniel Rubino over at Windows Phone Central has been knee deep in all things Windows Phone 8.1, and has taken the time to put together a quick shootout of the three major voice assistants across the Mobile Nations. So grab a beverage and head on over to Windows Phone Central to check it out!
Reader comments
Siri vs Cortana vs Google Now: The voice assistant showdown!
That was actually a fairly useful comparison. Obviously, Siri has a good deal of catching up to do.
That said, I cringed a bit during the "what is the weather?" and "what is the best Indian restaurant around me?" questions when he gave all three full credit simply because they displayed the information he asked for... did anyone else notice that the actual information they each displayed for these questions were *completely* different? Each had a different list of "best Indian restaurants" and each had a different prediction for Tuesday's weather. Since they clearly pull their data from different places, it seems reasonable to rank them based on the quality of the data each returns. Android serving up Google Review's list of top Indian restaurants doesn't do you a lot of good if Yelp is the dominant service in your area (as it is, frankly, in most places).
The information they each displayed were different cuz "Cortana" is taking info from Bing, "Siri" is taking info from Yahoo and "Google now" from Google....that's why they have different answers.
Sorry, I was probably unclear. I know the data is different because it comes from different sources. That was actually my point. If you ask Siri for "best Indian food around me," it will serve you a list based on Yelp reviews. Google, on the other hand, replies with its own in-house review service, Google Reviews, which is often under-used (most restaurants have few, if any reviews because people opt for Yelp)--Yelp, in most places, is a better source. Rubino gave them equal marks, even though the actual answers were all radically different, and, at least in my opinion, iPhone probably wins because its source was much better.
It just reminds me of that xkcd (https://xkcd.com/937/) where people applaud the existence of features but don't seem particularly concerned with whether you actually get the information you're asking for or not.
Actually, Siri pulls search results from Bing, but weather from Yahoo. So theoretically the search results should be identical between Cortana and Siri.
Cortana uses Yelp!! for reviews
Siri and Yahoo uses bing
Cortana uses Yelp!!!! for restaurant reviews
Cortana will have a great number of languages supported, and that number will be expanded gradually. Google's stuff is global, too. Apple, typically, could not care less about such matters. So, it will be fun to watch the comparison between these three by speakers of smaller lagnuages. Siri will be doing quite poorly, I predict. Siri will look quite silly, even, since it will not understand a thing. And yes, it will be offered on the most expensive product line of the three. Just like with Maps, if you are not a North American, do not buy Apple.
People like me should have learnt that by now. But here I am with my 5S, having not bothered to check out how much better the competition is these days. Has Apple become the industry dinosaur, the next Motorola soon to be fossilised?
5 comments about this article in iMore and 81 comments on Android central. So much to which site has more followers.