Perplexity’s iOS App simply obtained an replace enabling assist for the corporate’s conversational AI voice assistant. Now Apple customers can activate the assistant within the app and ask it to carry out duties like writing emails, setting reminders, and making dinner reservations.
You may even navigate away from the app and proceed to talk to Perplexity, though it doesn’t but assist display sharing prefer it does on Android. Meanwhile, a number of the conversational AI stuff Apple has promised for the Apple Intelligence-powered Siri might nonetheless be greater than a 12 months away. And not like Apple Intelligence, Perplexity’s assistant can do this stuff on older gadgets, like my iPhone 13 mini.
When the Android model launched in January, Perplexity’s spokesperson informed The Verge that it might come to iPhones and iPads as soon as “Apple provides us the suitable permissions,” and apparently that has been labored out.
I downloaded Perplexity for the primary time on my iPhone immediately and requested it to set a reminder for me to start out cooking at 7PM. I used to be greeted with a pop-up asking me to provide it permission to see my reminders. I accepted, and it added the reminder as I anticipated. I attempted crafting a textual content message and, as anticipated, Perplexity requested for entry to my contacts. I declined, however I appreciated that the assistant’s subsequent step was to immediate me to only say the meant cellphone quantity as a substitute of failing utterly.
I additionally tried reserving a desk at a restaurant, as proven within the video demo posted by Peplexity, and its cell assistant opened Open Table, then entered the dates and occasions I stated out loud. The actions aren’t end-to-end, although; you’ll nonetheless want to finish the method your self within the window. Perplexity may also open my Uber app and set me up with a journey.
Perplexity’s voice assistant has different limitations on iOS. You can’t ask it to take a look at your digicam and “see” what you see for context, as different AI assistants can, like ChatGPT and Grok. But you possibly can nonetheless use the usual text-based chatbot to ask questions on an image. And you possibly can’t ask it to set your iPhone’s scheduled alarms for you — you’ll nonetheless want Siri for that.
