However, it offers only a few services, and you have to link some of the apps via your smartphone first. Google Assistant can likewise control playback on Chromecast-connected devices, including TVs with Chromecast built in.
#Google voice actions iphone tv#
With Alexa, you can now control your Amazon Fire TV, Fire TV Stick or Fire TV Edition, including opening apps, jumping around in time, and playing and pausing. Integration with home entertainment equipment is one of the coolest features of virtual assistants. In the end, Alexa gets the edge here, thanks to having slightly more integrations, including with a service as big as Apple Music and Apple Podcasts, which is still the largest podcast directory around. And both Google Assistant and Alexa also come built in to a number of the best smart speakers. Alexa and Google Assistant also support audio playback from some music services to Sonos speakers, while Google Assistant can communicate with any Chromecast-connected speaker. Don't Tell Me!" and "The Incomparable" podcasts, but they even handled the more obscure Australian show "Dragon Friends."īoth assistants offer some form of multiroom audio functionality, including creating groups of speakers via your smartphone. Not only did both assistants easily play the most recent episodes of both "Wait Wait. Alexa now lets you link your Apple Podcasts account like a music service, giving tighter integration for those on iOS devices and Macs, while Google Podcasts seems to have improved on the Assistant. In terms of being able to find and play podcasts, both assistants have improved further since our last comparison. Both assistants obviously integrate with their company's respective music services, and in some cases offer the ability to link to third-party offerings as well.īoth assistants responded to my request to play upbeat '80s music and West Coast jazz by offering up stations that matched those descriptions. Music should be a strong suit for any smart assistant. For example, when I asked why the sky was blue, Google Assistant went on a lengthy explanation about diffuse sky radiation that would have any five-year-old’s eyes glazing over.
It generally gave solid, fast answers with context, though sometimes with too much or too technical information. Google Assistant's results were pretty close to those from Alexa. However, the answers and comprehension from both Alexa and Google Assistant were generally spot on, requiring little rephrasing and rarely forcing me to ask more than once.
Neither did great when I asked about the first secretary-general of the United Nations, though the Google Nest Hub was at least able to provide the answer in an onscreen display, if not read it aloud. For example, it could tell me when the season premiere of Westworld aired, while the Google Assistant wanted to read me a synopsis of the episode.īizarrely, while Alexa was finally able to answer questions about the all-time stolen base leader after a rephrase, the Google Assistant just couldn’t fathom this question, even though it had answered it correctly in our previous shootout. While both assistants are more competent than ever, Alexa continues to narrowly edge out Google Assistant in the general knowledge realm, taking top honors largely because it provided better answers to several questions. We tasked each of the digital assistants with a battery of 20 general-knowledge questions. While Amazon will likely continue to improve its support for multiple profiles, Google’s more extensive personal results definitely make it the superior assistant in this area.
Secondly, both can understand "and" both in commands and in items, so you can say "turn off the lights in the office and turn on the lights in the living room" or "add milk and bananas to my shopping list" without, say, getting a single item labeled "milk and bananas." This mode is off by default in both cases, since it can lead to some false positives. Alexa, meanwhile, currently offers only personalized shopping, calling and messaging, and limited media options, though it does have a nifty Guest Connect feature that lets you connect to a friend’s Echo device if, for example, you’re staying with them, to get access to your own data.Īlexa and Google Assistant also have two voice-related features worth noting: First, both have an optional "follow-up" mode, in which they remain active for a few seconds after answering your query, so you can issue another command without saying the wake word again.
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