Siri was one of the first (if not the first) voice commanded assistants for smartphones. And we have to admit that its very well done. The problem is that its exclusively for iOS. Google has its own Google Now service, with the popular command ‘OK Google’, but today we are talking about one of the most interesting alternatives.
Sherpa is a virtual assistant brought to you by a company of the same name located in Bilbao, Spain. Its growth is quite amazing, as they already have an annual event with talks of all sort of experts in attendance. But what does Sherpa have to offer us?
Even though it has that ‘Beta’ surname for very long time, the app is perfectly operative. At the moment it answers to all the tasks it’s meant to. We can make any kind of search: specific type of restaurant, nearest bank, information about someone etc. Sherpa can also show us our appointments for the day, remind us for any event going on the next hour or days as well as information about the flight we have booked.
But not only that. It can help us by launching apps by just mentioning their name as well as searching and playing music.
One interesting aspect of Sherpa is that it doesn’t only work with different languages, it also works with accents, and according to their developers, the voice recognition is a feature they’re specially proud of. We can’t test all of them to prove if they’re right, but at least is curious reading in our phones ‘Aye! What can I do for ye?’ This could be good for the Scottish as they complain that Siri doesn’t understand them.
About the interface we can say that it’s pretty simple. They’re focusing on using the ‘cards’ style of Google Now to organise anything you need. And even if at the beginning it simply answers your orders, it purports to learn from your searches and uses these to offer you a more complete experience.
We look forward to seeing how Sherpa evolves.