BlackBerry shows digital assistant for its smartphones

BlackBerry has shown its digital assistant in BlackBerry 10.3. The assistant works with voice and typed commands and can, among other things, change settings and access the BlackBerry Hub to read messages and mark them as read.

BlackBerry has posted the first information about the service, BlackBerry Assistant, on its own blog. Assistant will be part of BlackBerry OS 10.3, an update that will probably be released this fall and that will run on the yet-to-be-announced Passport smartphone. It is obvious that the manufacturer, just like its previous updates, BlackBerry OS 10.3 for all its BB10 devices.

Users can use Assistant to invoke functions, such as posting a tweet or sending a message. It is also possible to use functions of the device, such as the flashlight function or changing a sound profile. The digital assistant works with voice control, but can also function by typing.

BlackBerry is the fourth mobile platform with a built-in digital assistant. Apple made Siri part of iOS in 2011, Google followed with Now in 2012, while Microsoft built Cortana into Windows Phone 8.1. All digital assistants have different functions and work in different ways.

The announcement of the digital assistant is no surprise: as early as March it turned out that a leaked firmware would contain a digital assistant in BlackBerry 10.3, but it did not function yet.