Google Assistant expands its reach on iOS

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Google Assistant
Look out, Siri!
Photo: Google

Google has expanded the reach of the Google Assistant on iOS.

Until today, the feature was only available to iPhone and iPad users in the U.S. — but now you can access it in a number of new countries throughout Europe, including the U.K.

Announced at Google I/O in 2016, the Assistant is a successor to Google Now. It can engage in two-way conversations and has a much more natural voice, and it’s more powerful than ever before. However, for a while, it was exclusive to Android devices.

That changed in May, when the Assistant landed on iOS for users in the U.S.

Available as a standalone app, it has the ability to answer questions and fetch information, initiative phone calls and send text messages, set reminders and calendar events, find turn-by-turn directions to places, and lots more.

Now the Google Assistant app for iOS is available in the U.K., France, and Germany. It’s not quite as useful as it is on Android, where Google doesn’t have to content with Apple’s restrictions — but it’s still darn good.

Get started by downloading the Google Assistant app from the App Store.

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