Personal assistant Indigo release date announced, coming to Windows Phone 8 on April 23rd

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Hello Indigo, if you're not already familiar with the name, is a personal assistant that's set to be released later this month. Coming to Windows Phone 8 and Android on April 23rd, Indigo will enable consumers to have an intelligent conversation with the system that's said to be able to understand everyday phrases. Think Siri, but more functional and offering numerous new features. We took a look at Indigo back at MWC.

If this is the case and Indigo really can understand speech input without requiring special commands, this could be pretty huge for the personal assistant craze. Windows Phone already has a well-established assistant called Ask Ziggy and Indigo will fit right in as a sibling, sporting similar functionality. Users of Indigo can even personalise the experience by building a profile on personal interest and hobbies.

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The best part about Indigo is that it's cross-platform. You can even start a conversation on one device and carry it on using another (whether it be Android or Windows Phone). According to the official website, Indigo will boast the ability to:

  • Tap into social networks and carry out commands without requiring login details and typing a single line. Now that would be pretty special. Being able to tweet, update Facebook and more straight from the start screen - without loading a single app. 
  • Recommend local restaurants. Indigo is integrated with Yelp to help find ideal venues to check out.
  • Search the web, utilising Google, Bing, etc. to look up anything you can think of.
  • Compose email on the go and send it to a contact, hands-free.
  • Stream music from Spotify, selecting an artist, song or even a mood.

Sounds pretty neat, right? Be sure to keep an eye on this space as we'll update when the app is finally available on the Windows Phone Store. Also, head on over the the official website to set up an account and read up more information.

Source: Twitter (@hello_indigo), thanks, Simon, for the tip!

Rich Edmonds
Rich Edmonds

Rich Edmonds is a word conjurer at Windows Central, covering everything related to Windows, gaming, and hardware. He's been involved in technology for more than a decade and knows a thing or two about the magic inside a device chassis. You can follow him over on Twitter at @RichEdmonds.
43 Comments
  • Can't wait to try it out, Maluuba isn't cutting it.
  • It's not bad by any means, but it could be a bit more feature packed.
  • I actually like Maluuba. Its simple and easy to use, but voice recognition is painful. Very rarely picks up what I say.
  • For sure, but without any updates, right out of the box it was pretty smooth for a 1.0 sort of speak.
  • I agree, out of the box, it shot to #1 for voice assisted functions, hope they update.
  • +1
  • Happens to be my birthday! :)
  • Soo uninstall Maluuba?
  • Not at all, it's all subjective. Use the one which is best for you :-)
  • I like what you did there heehee ;)
  • I see articles like this and wish I wasn't so stupid as to trade in my Lumia 820 for an iPhone 4S.
  • I'll trade you a shiny red stapler for your iPhone 4S lol
  • Tmobile 810 for $240 on their website, not a bad device and easy on the pockets.
  • Been waiting as well since its intro some time ago. I use say your appointment but that's just for that.
  • This better integrate into WP native calendar and Skydrive. Developers need to start inegrating native essential functions into their WP apps.
    There a many apps that are great but because they lack deep integration they are pretty useless. Take 627.AM for example, great app but the reminders and such are not added to my calendar. Same with Clearer and Clearnote.
  • Can they?
  • From their website:
    The Indigo App is fully compatible with the phone’s pre-installed features such as contacts, weather and calendar.
     
  • And here's the link to the site Techno-Freak referred to.
    http://www.hello-indigo.com/indigo-for-windows-8/
  • I always want to integrate Live Calendar within 627.AM but I thought Calendar access is read-only... And there's no TO-DO API available. See this http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/jj207071(v=vs.105).aspx
    I wonder how they did it...
  • It has its own "Reminders" and it will set its own alarms to remind you. For the calendar, items do go into the native calendar.
  • Ask ziggy is a joke!!!
  • I think it has been abonded
  • Will it announce the caller and let me answer without touching the phone? Otherwise, I am happy with the default speech feature
  • No, that's not what it is designed for and MS likely would never give access for that.
  • Makes more sense for me to be cross platform with Windows 8. Till then not useful to me.
  • I can't wait to see this one. I hope there is a way to have this W/O ads.
  • Will it work by long-pressing the home button or do I have to tap on the tile first? Also how deep is the integration with messaging, contacts and calendar?
  • see techno's post above
  • Long pressing won't activate Indigo. You have to open the app...youll want to pin the tile. The integration otherwise is deep. Messages are sent from the native apps and calendar items go to the native calendar.
  • Interested to see if this can really work while everything else hasn't been all that great. TellMe is limited, AskZiggy has been abadonned and wasn't that great anyway and Maluuba has some cool stuff but it very rarely understands what I say. May be my accent but that's a tired excuse for this stuff at this point.
  • Please, please have start button integration! 
  • ...what he said!!!
  • No "Linkedin?"
  • So if it does a good job on Windows Phone, will Microsoft buy them and actually do something to integrate a good personal assistant on Windows Phone? Or do they finally have TellMe doing the maginificent work they show in the video from a few years ago?
  • I wouldnt was Google to buy it.
  • I'm really excited for this. The natural language and learning capability makes it very intriguing. It could be the most feature packed, intuitive and intelligent virtual assistant available. Yes, it could be even better than Siri.
  • Until they start supporting diffrent languages than english, this is a no go for me. And I happen to live in a country, where WP platform is getting close to 20% marketshare. Still Indigo won't be for us. Only for USA, UK, maybe some fanatics in other countries who like to speak to their phone in english. Funny thing is, that in USA WP ain't popular at all... Indigo has an issue targeting the right market at the right time...
    Even WP8 itself doesn't support Polish language for anything more than a few simple voice commands... for me voice input on whole platform, including apps, is useless... Why I should issue send SMS command, when I have eventually type all content on keyboard. it's faster to tap SMS tile and that's it.
  • Can't wait!
  • But it won't work on WP7.x :-(
  • Still no indigo on windows store when will it get April 23 my arse?
  • Nothing in the store.. What's the hold up?
  • You can get for Android but not windows phone 8
  • This is just like waiting for the ups guy to show up with your new phone...