Perplexity's New iOS Voice Assistant Works Where Siri Still Can't
Perplexity has updated its iOS app with a new Voice Assistant feature, bringing conversational AI capabilities to Apple devices, including older iPhones and iPads that don't support Apple Intelligence. The update allows iPhone users to interact with Perplexity's AI assistant through voice commands even when navigating away from the app.
The Voice Assistant can perform various tasks such as the following, given the requisite user permissions:
- Drafting and sending emails
- Sending messages and making calls
- Controlling smart home devices
- Providing Apple Maps directions and traffic updates
- Setting reminders
- Booking Ubers
- Scheduling and editing Calendar events
- Playing Podcasts, including search and subscribe
- Playing music and videos
- Answering general knowledge questions
- Making reservations via booking sites
Voice Assistant can browse the web and perform multi-app actions to complete these functions directly from the Perplexity iOS app.
The update includes a shortcut for Voice Assistant that can be added to the Lock Screen or assigned to an iPhone's Action button, making Perplexity a viable substitute for some of Apple Intelligence's
delayed conversational AI enhancements for Siri, which are still likely months away from release.
Perplexity leverages the power of large language models like OpenAI's GPT-4.1, Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro, Anthropic's Claude 3.7 Sonnet, and xAi's Grok-2. The iOS app currently lacks the screen sharing capability found in the Android version of Perplexity, where the assistant can see and interact with content on the user's screen. Perplexity syncs across devices and is a free download with in-app subscriptions from the App Store. [Direct Link]
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