BlackBerry is going to release a voice-enabled assistant, just like Siri and Windows Phone’s Cortana.
The company stated that the newest BlackBerry Assistant responds to voice commands but also uses the Passport’s keyboard to respond to typed commands. It will be included with the upcoming BlackBerry Passport and will be able to launch apps, respond to voice commands and control your devices settings.
Although the Canadian-based company hasn’t provided a full breakdown of the app’s functionality, people have already expected that it will be able to launch and control apps, tweak certain device settings like changing notifications settings to “phone calls only” and will be compatible with bluetooth devices. It is also expected that BlackBerry Assistant, like Cortana, will continuously learn from your actions and will get smarter the more you use it.
The voice-command assistant is BlackBerry’s latest strive to follow its competitors after continuously falling revenues and other recent declines. The company previewed its upcoming extra-wide Passport earlier this month, after announcing it would be bringing Amazon’s Appstore to its users in an attempt to close the platform’s app gap.
BlackBerry Assistant will be available on the upcoming BlackBerry Passport, which will be powered by BlackBerry 10.3. However, it’s still unclear whether the feature will be available to other devices or not.