In a revolutionary program that may revolutionize our smartphone habits, Perplexity AI has made available an intelligent, voice-activated assistant for iPhones, and emerged as a formidable competitor in the market for smart mobile agents.
Introduced by Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas in a series of posting on X (formerly Twitter), the new incarnation of Perplexity Assistant is more than just a conversational chatbot. It introduces actionable AI to iPhone, enabling users to accomplish tasks that are relevant to their daily lives through voice, fundamentally changing the way iPhone carries out everyday tasks.
Beyond Siri: A True Action-Based Assistant
Whereas Apple’s Siri and other voice assistants like ChatGPT Voice are based largely on Q&A-style conversations, Perplexity goes a step further. The assistant is now capable of playing media, scheduling and sending emails, rescheduling calendar events booking cabs, making reservations, and setting up reminders using just natural language voice commands.
Users can simply say things like:
- “Play me the podcast episode where Marc Andreessen talks about browsers with Lex Fridman.”
- “Let me see the videotape of Katy Perry kissing the ground when she got off the rocket.
Right now the assistant works with Apple Music to play music and Apple Mail to send emails. Gmail and Google Calendar support are coming soon.
‘Hey Steve’ — A Tribute to the Visionary
As a bit of a tongue-in-cheek salute, with a touch of sentimentality, Srinivas proposed the invocation as “Hey Steve,” in honor of the late Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, in recognition of the vision and innovation that having outlived the programmer who wrote the code for the first phone call, is alive and well in today’s tech genie.
Perplexity Voice can also be mapped to the iPhone’s Action button, effectively transforming the physical button into an AI gateway; a voice is prepared to speak within 3~4 seconds after activation.
Limitations Still Exist For Now
Because of the limitations of Apple’s SDK, some system-level tasks, such as changing brightness, volume, or turning on the flashlight, are still unfortunately off-limits. Likewise native alarm setting is limited, but Perplexity includes these via in-app work-arounds.
But despite these limitations, the assistant’s abilities and iOS integration make a big stride toward a generic full-service on-device AI agent.
A New Era of Mobile Intelligence
Not quite a Siri killer yet, Perplexity Assistant is perhaps the closest any third-party AI has come to reaching that dream on iOS. It combines the convenience of voice control with real-world actionability, a feat that even ChatGPT Voice has not yet truly nailed on Apple hardware.
This is the start of a new era in mobile AI, one in which assistants aren’t just clever, but helpful.
