BlackBerry is joining the voice-activated personal assistant party with a new feature called BlackBerry Assistant. When the BlackBerry 10.3 operating system launches it’ll include the company’s voice assistant software which lets you search for information, send text messages and more without touching the keyboard.

In other words, BlackBerry Assistant is basically the BlackBerry version of Apple’s Siri.

blackberry assistant_02

Most other major smartphone operating systems already have some sort of virtual digital assistant/voice recognition software. Apple kicked things off with Siri, but Google Now and Google voice actions perform similar functions, and Microsoft recently launched Cortana for Windows Phone.

In a blog post, Blackberry explains some of the things its virtual assistant can do, such as letting you turn on the flashlight by saying “turn on the flashlight,” silence all notifications except for phone calls by saying “Phone calls only, please,” or sending a message via BBM.

BlackBerry Assistant isn’t just a voice-activated service though. You can also use it to type out requests from the home screen such as “remind me to follow up with Brad” to create a reminder note.

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2 replies on “BlackBerry Assistant is the company’s answer to Siri (and Google Now… and Cortana)”

  1. Definitely a sign that BB is really truly working hard to stay relevant.
    While my own personal needs aren’t meet by this platform I still wish it/them success.

  2. Great! Welcome to 2014 BlackBerry, better late than never I guess. They should have just called it BB (Bibi) as BlackBerry Assistant doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. Those colored tiles in the last screenshot look awfully similar to the dreaded Windows 8 tiles…ick! Oh ya, so when is this 10.3 supposed to finally drop? Waiting is becoming synonymous with BlackBerry. Get this out NOW!

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