So I’m on day 21 of my BlackBerry Passport Challenge. And this week or today or in this video, I wanted to check out BlackBerry Assistant. In the past, BlackBerry always used to have these sort of voice-controlled features and they were pretty terrible. But BlackBerry Assistant is much more than that—it can find out information, it can set reminders. It can basically act like an assistant or so it claims. We’ll put it to the test and I’ve compiled some examples to try and show you what it can do.
So I made a list of stuff I wanted to try out and see how it actually worked. And I recorded it as I was doing it so there’s no messing around and afterwards with results. You can see actually what happened while I was trying to do certain stuff. This included things like asking about the weather forecast: “What’s the weather going to be like tomorrow,” asking it to set reminders: “Remind me to put out the recycling on Wednesday,” asking questions about sports-related trivia: “Who won the Formula One World Championship this year?” I also tried some maths or mathematics (as you guys like to call it or math): “What’s 156 multiplied by 13.2?” I asked it to check my calendar for what was on my schedule: “What’s on my schedule next Monday?” I also asked it to call or text or send BBM messages to various contacts: “Send a message… BBM… Jess Sullivan.” I also tried to test its integration with the map software to get directions: “How do I get to White Hart Lane?”
It can do more than that as well. It can also control the systems so you can use it to switch on the flashlight or switch on Bluetooth or even switch on or off your Wi-Fi. You can do all kinds of things like that. “Turn on Wi-Fi.” It’s also up to date with all your social networks so if you’re signed in with Twitter or Facebook, you can ask it to check your feed or see what’s trending or post an update.
All in all, it seems to work fairly well. I had some issues with the number of tasks like maybe asking a question in a way that it wasn’t programmed to understand. Like the mathematics question I tried to ask it. And also, it doesn’t give you sports trivia in the app itself. It takes you to the browser to search on Google.
I only have 9 or 10 days left of this challenge so keep on asking me questions on Twitter, give me suggestions and thank you for solving my Instagram problem, which I will share another time.
It's now day 21 of the 30-day BlackBerry Passport challenge and Cam's turning his attention to the built-in digital assistant. Aptly named BlackBerry Assistant, the program lets you do all kinds of things just by using your voice. You can set reminders, ask questions, control settings and much, much more.
Day 1 - Switching from an iPhone: http://youtu.be/gTc_uf-A6rs
Day 5 - It's all about those apps: http://youtu.be/GlQLXLVpmSc
Day 11 - Camera and Story Maker: http://youtu.be/NKXO_-pUMd8
Day 17 - 4 frustrations and a surprise: http://youtu.be/obCiHxcT54k
BlackBerry Blend overview: http://youtu.be/0LRbNqUSjTM
Passport keyboard overview: http://youtu.be/Yn6DRcUFj8Y
