Is there a "Siri" for my Samsung Galaxy S5??

mikahdad · Mar 29, 2016

Okay--

I'm aware of the S-note app but it's a piece of crap as far as I'm concerned. Has Samsung or independent
provider to them come up with an app that is close to Siri? My contract for the S5 is up in a few months
and I may switch to iPhone because of the usefulness of this one particular app. Help.

mikahdad

MLSS · Mar 29, 2016

Just use Google. Works much better than suri in my opinion.

I just say "Okay Google" and ask what ever I want. I can make calls, send texts, do searches, launch play lists and on and on and on.

Bigjohn · Mar 29, 2016

Assistant. Great app!

AZgl1500 · Mar 29, 2016

Google Voice beats the shit out of everything IMO, it has never failed to provide what I want.

never tried 'assistant', will have to look that one over.

jefboyardee · Mar 29, 2016

There's Jeannie, an early competitor to Siri. I still have it in the back forty of my apps, but never had much use for it.

Get Jeannie, one of the best voice assistants that has several million downloads today!
Voice Search of the future, you will no longer need to memorize special keywords or phrases, simply speak into your smartphone and voice actions will automatically respond to what you need. Talk to her, she is quite a character.

AZgl1500 · Mar 29, 2016

Well, Jeannie, took my name, asked me how I feel, and said "thanks"

I then asked "where is Ocala, Florida" and that is where every thing stopped.

google voice would have popped up a map and showed me Ocala, Florida and asked if I want to go there now? do I need directions?

not impressed.

Thom · Mar 29, 2016

My only experience is with Droid Turbo 2 without the need to touch it. It is like OK Google Now without the need to touch the phone. I don't know what phones other than Droid Maxx, Droid Turbo, and Droid Turbo 2 that have it.

... Thom

Clementine_3 · Mar 29, 2016

The Moto X's (all variations/versions) and Nexus 6 (Moto) have what you are used to @Thom. Great feature, love it, totally hands free.

AZgl1500 · Mar 29, 2016

I don't have "Okay Now" turned on, I just touch the microphone at the top of the screen.
for me, that is good enough.

Thom · Mar 30, 2016

Yes it sounds silly or stupid when you hear people talking about it ... then you try it and conclude ... that's kind of interesting ... then a week goes by and you wonder when the rest of the world will catch on.

... Thom

chanchan05 · Mar 30, 2016

There's the built in SVoice. LOL. But to be honest, I never used any of these kinds apps.

AZgl1500 · Mar 30, 2016

I tried S voice once, it was so inadequate, I disabled the app.

Dannydet · Mar 30, 2016

Dragon by Nuance is not bad....

mikahdad · Mar 30, 2016

So are Google Voice and Assistant separate apps and if so how do you get either. I just tried Okay Google and it appears to work fine for the questions I've asked it so far.

electricpete · Mar 30, 2016

The Google terminology is a little weird

"Google voice" is a free service that gives you a phone number where you can make and receive calls. Also very flexible call screening, forwarding, visual voicemail etc.

"Assistant" - if you are referring to interaction after saying ok Google...It's something different than Google voice. What is this interactive assistant properly called? I don't really know. Some people call it Google now, but I associate that with cards. Some people call it "Google voice commands", which is more descriptive.... The extra word "command" helps distinguish it from "Google voice". I just call it "ok Google"...everyone knows what I mean

svim · Mar 30, 2016

mikahdad said:
My contract for the S5 is up in a few months
and I may switch to iPhone because of the usefulness of this one particular app.

I've only had very limited exposure to Siri through friends and acquaintances and while all of them find Siri to be fun and useful to a limited extent, that was the issue -- while being smoothly folded into iOS it's limitation is a lack of extensive integration with your info and its functionality. Google Now on the other hand, takes your info and makes it a significant part of now it works. An example being a notification about being late for an appointment is based on an entry in your Google Calendar and traffic conditions it pulls from Google Maps/Waze.

http://www.cultofmac.com/330162/siri-vs-google-now-who-wins-the-ai-cat-fight/

AZgl1500 · Mar 30, 2016

my son uses siri on his iPhone a lot, but only when he is in a car driving.

he says it does not do well in noisy environments.

Bigjohn · Mar 30, 2016

mikahdad said:
So are Google Voice and Assistant separate apps and if so how do you get either. I just tried Okay Google and it appears to work fine for the questions I've asked it so far.

Assistant is in the google App Store.
It uses google speech and other tech, but it's better than siri, even in the free version

mikedt · Mar 30, 2016

AZgl1500 said:
Well, Jeannie, took my name, asked me how I feel, and said "thanks"

I then asked "where is Ocala, Florida" and that is where every thing stopped.

google voice would have popped up a map and showed me Ocala, Florida and asked if I want to go there now? do I need directions?

not impressed.

Jeannie is just a chat-bot, and a very limited one as well I found. Which is frankly about as much use as Talking Tom for controlling your phone, asking for directions, ordering things. LOL

electricpete · Apr 1, 2016

ok, I didn't understand that "assistant" is a completely different app, not by google. So my last post completely missed the boat and probably created confusion. I should separate three things.

"google voice" - phone service not related to this thread.
"assistant" - 3rd party app - I know nothing about it
"ok google" (google voice commands) - built in to most android phones as part of the google app without need for 3rd party app. It's what I use and most android users use.

How does "ok google" compare to the 3rd party apps like "assistant" and the others mentioned? While I haven't tried any of the 3rd party apps mentioned I certainly suspect "ok google" is far preferable for most people on most counts:

powerful.
- ok google is powerful... it taps directly into google's service.
convenience
- ok google is convenient. As mentioned, there are a variety of ways to trigger it easily depending on phone/setup. I trigger ok google simply by saying ok google to my watch (Moto 360) or on my phone (while at Nova launcher screen).
resources
- ok google does not seem to be a resource hog in spite of the convenient activation. I don't know about the other apps, but if they implement some kind of always-listening or often-listening feature for easy activation, it's very easy for them to use a ton of juice if not well managed.
privacy/permissions.
- Google needs a lot of permissions, but that doesn't concern me because Google is a well-known $500 billion company whose corporate value is heavily dependent on user trust. So it is simply not in their best interest to jeopardize all that by misusing my personal info in any way that would be detrimental to me. In contrast I don't know anything about these other developers. I checked "assistant" app permissions and it asks for: calendar, contacts, location, microphone, phone, sms, storage.... WOW!!! While the permissions themselves don't suggest anything sinister about the app (these permissions are required for the app to do it's job), I certainly have to ask who is this dev that people are willing to trust with all these permissions that literally include the potential to listen to their everything they do. Personally I'd have to spend a lot of time researching any dev before granting them those sweeping permissions.

mikahdad · Apr 1, 2016

Thanks electricpete....you've answered all the questions I had and more...I've used ok google a number of times and it does the job for me. Thanks again.

syzmic · Apr 2, 2016

You might try HOUND. It is in the Google Play Store... They claim to be the best. I've been using them for a while, so far they are impressive.

xyourxhighnessx · Apr 8, 2016

I agree with anyone who says use ok google.

Its brilliant. Its built right into the phone.

Im not a samsung fan because i find gapps dont work as they should in comparison to how they work on devices that run asop roms or nexus devices but really i think youd be hard pressed to find a voice assistant type app that can beat it.

The google app is very powerful. If you play with the settings you can trigger ok google even with the screen off

Is there a "Siri" for my Samsung Galaxy S5??

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