After Siri, Google Now and Cortana, BlackBerry Enters the Personal Assistant Market with BlackBerry Assistant

After Microsoft’s Cortana, Google’s Google Now and Apple’s Siri, BlackBerry has also joined the league of voice-based virtual assistants with BlackBerry Assistant.

The launch of BlackBerry Assistant was confirmed by the company through an official blog post on Wednesday. It was revealed that the application will make its debut in the yet to release BlackBerry Passport smart phone and the BlackBerry 10.3 OS.

According to the blog post, the BlackBerry Assistant UI will feature a microphone (as in Google Now) which the user would be required to press in order to give voice commands. The application will respond to all forms of spoken commands and requests.

In addition to the voice activation, BlackBerry assistant will also aid in managing simple tasks such as searching through the calendar or email and even in finding out the Twitter trends or sending trivia invitations. The more its usage, the more adaptable it will become and the easier handling of the device will be. The blog post also noted that how BlackBerry Assistant will be more accurate in recognizing user requests in comparison to other smart phone based assistants. In other words, the BlackBerry Assistant has been claimed to perform better with its usage.

However, the blog post did not disclose any particular time frame as far as the release of the BlackBerry 10.3 OS is concerned, that is supposed to be launched along with BlackBerry Assistant.

The Company’s CEO John Chen had told in an annual meeting and BlackBerry’s earnings report in June that a square shaped ‘Windermere’ smart phone will be launched in September under the official name BlackBerry Passport.

According to the BlackBerry developer listing, BlackBerry Passport smart phone will feature a 4.5 inch display and a resolution of exact 1440×1440 pixels with the pixel density of nearly 453ppi.

Recently, the company revealed its inspiration behind the square shaped Passport phone, detailing the advantage and the purpose of such a design. As far as browsing the web, viewing documents or reading e-books is concerned, the aspect ratio and the size of the upcoming BlackBerry Passport make it an ideal device. Certainly, one need not worry about the landscapes or portrait modes anymore.

The three notable features of BlackBerry Assistant are-

1. Voice Controls

Now you need not tap the touch screen to trigger actions in your phone. Simply command through your voice and all your tasks will be done quickly. In addition to this, the BlackBerry Assistant will also allow its users to launch applications such as calculator or flashlight through voice commands.

2. Messaging

Gone are the laborious times of typing long text on your smart phone keyboard for a message or an email. With the new BlackBerry Assistant, you can voice command the application to read, type or even send your message at any time to any contact in your list.

3. BlackBerry Search

Nothing is better than receiving the information just when you need it. With BlackBerry Assistant, this is possible. Simply launch the application and use the voice controls to search for the required information.