[b2themax]

FWIW, I just switched from Windows Phone to iOS -- from the 1020 to iPhone6+. Personally, I preferred Cortana over Siri. And it basically comes down to speed and responsiveness. Cortana is much quicker to launch, and much quicker to find results. I haven't noticed any discernable difference in their query results. And actually, for one of the my most used queries - "What is the weather today?" -- I dont even use it on iOS because the stock weather app is disappointing, I use Yahoo. Cortana telling me the weather was much more usable. Siri is just so freaking slow, that I rarely use her.

[at-fates-hands]

Agreed on Cortana.

There are some things I feel Cortana does that Siri and Google Now does.

Every morning Cortana gives me the weather, appointments on my calendar, news stories and how long my commute will take given the current traffic conditions. It also learns when I normally leave for work, so about 10 minutes before I usually leave, I get an update on how long it will take to get home given the current conditions.

To me, Cortana is more like an assistant. You can set stuff so its off limits and she will ignore, and likewise, tell her to remember certain reminders like you pointed out.

Do either Google Now or Siri have these features that actively learn stuff about your preferences?

[wjoe]

Google Now does the same with commute times, and seems to automatically work out where you live and work. Same with appointment reminders, assuming you added a specific location to your calendar event - it's a bit hit and miss for me whether these reminders actually come up, but sometimes it tells me "Leave now to get to this appointment on time".

Things like these are a much more useful part of it than voice detection, I very rarely interact with it via voice, and tend to just do searches through my normal browser. It also hooks into Gmail and can give you reminders about things like flights you've booked, although that raises questions about privacy, and whether you really want Google to be trawling through your emails.

[com2kid]

> Google Now does the same with commute times

Eh, it also does it at really inappropriate times.

About 30 minutes after I get into the office it starts telling me how long it'd take me to get home, and that card stays up in Google Now until I actually do go home!

[wutbrodo]

> Personally, I preferred Cortana over Siri. And it basically comes down to speed and responsiveness. Cortana is much quicker to launch, and much quicker to find results.

I haven't used Cortana, and have only had disappointing experiences with Siri (after coming from Google Voice Search); how does the performance on Google Voice Search Compare? I wonder if the performance rankings are just a complete reversal of the quality rankings; If so, I wonder who's closest to the sweet spot?

[b2themax]

I haave used Google Now briefly with the Moto X. It is definitely faster than Siri in my experience. Speed is so important when it comes to these virtual assistants. I sincerely believe Siri is the worst of the bunch, which really stinks because I expected a lot more from a 900$ iPhone.

[mikeash]

Siri is entirely in The Cloud™ so your phone doesn't matter much, aside from the speed of its internet connection.

Have you tried it on iOS 8 since it came out? They finally added streaming voice recognition, which speeds it up a lot in my experience. Previously, it waited until you were done speaking to initiate the upload, which added a pretty big delay to any response.

[wutbrodo]

Holy cow, they JUST added streaming voice recognition? I haven't really followed Siri's progress since the early days but I thought that was table stakes, sheesh. I can't even imagine a voice service being usable in 2014 without it. Am I might just be completely out-of-touch with the current landscape for voice services, but Cortana isn't similarly hobbled, right?

[mikeash]

Yeah, it was a pretty glaring omission. You'd think it would be there from the start. I don't know about the others but I can't imagine they're not streaming as well.

[bphogan]

That's really interesting to me, because my daughter (6yo) asks Siri that question about 10 times a day on the 5S and the answer comes back in about a second. Whether we're on LTE or wifi. I wonder if there's other factors at play.

[b2themax]

I believe Cortana would get that info back in less than a second. It seems Siri takes more than a second for me just to activate, before it even begins listening... Maybe this is an iOS 8 issue for the time being...?