Google Bringing 'Duplex' Feature That Can Make Calls for You to iPhone

Google today announced plans to bring its "Duplex" feature that's designed to book restaurant reservations for you through actual voice calls to iOS devices.

Google says that the feature is available on all Pixel phones in 43 U.S. states and that it will be coming to "more Android and iOS devices" over the course of the next few weeks.

Unveiled at the 2018 Google I/O developer conference, Google Duplex lets Google Assistant make calls to businesses to schedule appointments and make restaurant reservations. It was demoed on stage with Google Assistant making a phone call to a real salon and using a natural-sounding conversation to book an appointment.

Following the demo, there were questions about the ethics of having a machine phone a real person, but in response, Google said that Google Assistant will identify itself and will allow restaurants to opt out of being recorded.

Placing a restaurant reservation this way involves telling Google Assistant where you want to go, what time, and with how many people. Google Assistant then calls the restaurant, and once a reservation is made successfully, you're notified via email and calendar invite.

Tag: Google

Top Rated Comments

rictus007

60 months ago

Can’t wait to tell google what I like to eat, where and with whom

Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)

gplusplus

I want Duplex/Google Assistant for its call screening features. The robo-spam and scam calls are outrageously out of hand and Apple has done nothing to make it better. Even RoboKiller, the top rated service for dealing with spam/scam calls, doesn’t cut it on iOS.

If they can bring this feature to iOS, I would be a very happy camper. But if Google continues to make strides in their digital assistant technology, while Apple is still stale, then I may finally switch back to Google’s ecosystem.

Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Intellectua1

It's cool, I'm sure by nights end you will have told Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.

Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)

JaySoul

Can't wait for Duplex to come to the UK.

Of course, here it will be called 'Maisonette'.

AppleMad98004

There’s no point to it.

It just means you don’t need a person answering the phone at the restaurant.

That's my thought. The end goal is Google software at the restaurant level (or any business) that will auto book for people who prefer the phone. This will replace all sorts of admin jobs.

Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Its going to be very interesting to see if Google is able to turn the assistant role inside out on the iPhone. Google Assistant is now able to be invoked using Siri Shortcuts and now this feature. People may start ignoring Apple's own offerings if they don't start matching features.

People may want to, but Apple maintains control. The iPhone has been out for almost 12 years now, yet they still won’t even let you change your default web browser. If Apple won’t let you change a default web browser, I doubt they’d let you change your default digital assistant. They will find a way to “break” the functionality, as they do with pretty much everything else.

Look at the graphics API fiasco. Apple could have supported Vulkan, an open standard graphics API created by Khronos Group, which Apple themselves was a member of. But no, they not only deprecated OpenGL support at 4.1 (very outdated), but they intentionally omitted Vulkan support and now force developers to use Metal 2, which is 100% proprietary. They don’t care about consumers or developers; they just want control.

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