Google's voice-controlled AI Assistant comes to the iPhone
You don't have to type questions into the Allo app anymore.
You no longer need to install the Allo messaging app on your iPhone to shoot the breeze with Google's AI Assistant. During the company's I/O keynote, Google's Scott Huffman announced that the Assistant is truly coming to the iPhone today, as was rumored earlier this week. With its standalone app, you'll be able to interact with the Assistant using your voice, whether that means asking it questions or controlling your smart home devices with conversational commands. Before now, you could only get limited Assistant functionality through Allo, which also required you to type queries and orders into the chat app.
That doesn't mean you can't use your iPhone keyboard to talk to the Assistant if you'd prefer not to bark at it though, and this summer, it'll also start understanding French, German, Brazilian-Portuguese and Japanese. Support for Italian, Spanish and Korean is also coming before the end of the year.
With Amazon just starting to roll out its Alexa voice-controlled assistant to iOS as of last month, things are beginning to look a little cramped in there for poor old Siri.
Update: The app is out now (at least in the US), and you can grab it on iTunes right here.
For all the latest news and updates from Google I/O 2017, follow along here.
