It’s safe to say the digital assistant wars are over. Siri, perhaps, is not great, and you can’t deny the fact that Google Assistant is the smartest Personal Assistant overall. So, the most favorite in the space is without a doubt, the Google Assistant. Here’s the definitive guide by which you can replace Siri with Google Assistant on your iPhone or iPad.
Siri is the way to go if you are deeply tied into Apple’s ecosystem. For iOS users, this causes a bit of a problem. We know Siri is terrible, but there’s very little we can do about it. On one hand, Apple’s locked-down environment provides a stable and secure device that we all love, but that same digital prison leaves us unable to choose our favorite options — a digital assistant, or a music streaming service for example.
Or, that was the case anyway. There’s a workaround, there’s a way for you to drop Siri as your personal assistant altogether and replace it with Google Assistant. It’s a bit awkward and unstable but super simple. Apple has upgraded its Siri Shortcuts, which now lets you record quick one or two-word commands like “call mom” or “play a song”. One of these options is the ability to summon Google Assistant and use it in the same way as you use Siri. In a few taps, you can harness the power of Google Assistant each time you trigger Siri.
To replace Siri with Google Assistant on iPhone or iPad, here’s how it’s done:
Download Google Assistant from the App Store:
First, you need to download and install the Google Assistant app from the App Store – it’s absolutely free. Once downloaded, set it up and grant it the necessary permissions like “Allow Notifications”, “Allow access to Bluetooth”, etc. for it to work.
Now, there are two methods to summon Google Assistant:
Method 1 – Create the ‘Hey, Google’ Shortcut:
- Launch the Shortcuts app on your iPhone/iPad
- Tap on the + icon on the top right corner
- Tap on the Add Action button
- Search Assistant
- Tap on Assistant under the Apps section
- From the list of actions, select Hey Google
- Tap on Next at the top right corner
- Name the shortcut Hey Google, then click Done
- There’s no step 9, it’s this simple.
Method 2 – Add “Ok Google” to Siri:
Here we’re going to add “Ok Google” Google Assistant’s trigger command to Siri.
To do that you’ll open the Google Assistant app, click the icon in the bottom-right corner, and then tap the Add to Siri button on the next screen.
You’ll then be prompted to record “Ok Google” or another trigger command to access Google Assistant. Tap the record button, say the magic word, and then tap Done in the upper right.
How to use this shortcut:
For this to work, you must have Siri enabled on your device. You can make sure it’s enabled by going to Settings > Siri & Search.
Now, this is the awkward part. From here, you’ll trigger Siri, and then say “Ok Google” which tells Siri to go to sleep while you deal with a real digital assistant. Unfortunately, you’ll need to do this each time you want to access Google Assistant, but it’s quick, relatively painless, and gives you a much better assistant to play around with.
You can, however rapid-fire the phrase: “Hey Siri, Ok Google” to mostly skip over Siri entirely.
Alternatively, you can say ‘Hey Siri’ followed by ‘Hey Google‘ to do the same thing. Or, you can just launch the Shortcuts app, tap on the newly created Hey Google shortcut and speak away your request.
Once you’ve given your request, the Google Assistant app will be launched and the results of your query will be displayed there.
While you can do a lot of things with Google Assistant on your iPhone and iPad, it may or may not be as fully featured as its Android counterpart. You can ask it to play something on the YouTube app, but you won’t be able to launch system apps such as Photos. But, if you have Google Photos installed, then it will work just fine. Basically, it plays nicely with Google’s own services. It won’t allow you to send text messages or iMessage. For that, you’ll have to use Siri. Again, not the best solution, but definitely worth it.
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