BlackBerry Ltd (BBRY) Plans Siri-Like Assistant To Challenge Apple Inc.

BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) has plans of releasing soon ‘BlackBerry Assistant’ – a new functionality, which would enables users to perform various actions giving verbal instructions. This is very much similar to virtual assistant facilities offered by the tech-industry giants that include Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL).

Initial feedback positive

BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) has informed that hands-free access will be made available for the voice assistant app and boast that the accuracy and Bluetooth connectivity is mind blowing. The user will be able to access e-mails and could hear those, and if needed could mark them unread as well without needing to touch the screen.

The accuracy of BlackBerry Assistant has been confirmed by an industry expert Donny Halliwell, who is a Social Media Marketing lead and Editor. Halliwell has a personal experience of using the service for few weeks on the yet to be released BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) device ‘Passport,’ and has reported that the accuracy is very much surprising in an exclamatory tone.

The expert informed that the ease with which he could perform various tasks like searching mails, managing tasks and events using calendar, using the various social media networks or searching the web for anything needed by either typing in or giving verbal commands.

“The more I use it, the more it learns and adapts to me,” Halliwell writes. “The more I speak with it, the more tuned-in to my queries it gets.”

BlackBerry learning from mistake

While BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) has made many mistakes in the past that eventually led to its downfall, but as an old adage says ‘better late than never’ the company has undertaken various strategies for its revival and has made a lot of improvement to both its products and services. Making BBM available on Android and Windows platform was one such move and launching a virtual assistance service is another. The app has been designed keeping enhanced user experience in mind.

The Canadian company is releasing some new smartphones, to compete with other smartphone market leaders, and a new device named ‘Passport’ is planned for release in September this year, which will run on the new OS 10.3.