My iPhone for Seniors, Second Edition (2016)
12. Working with Siri
In this chapter, you’ll learn about all the great things you can do with your iPhone by speaking to it. Topics include the following:
Getting started
Setting up Siri
Understanding Siri’s personality
Learning how to use Siri by example
Getting suggestions from Siri
Siri is Apple’s name for the iPhone’s and iPad’s voice recognition feature. This technology enables your iPhone to “listen” to words you speak so that you can issue commands just by saying them, such as “Send text message to Sam,” and the iPhone accomplishes the tasks you speak. This technology also enables the iPhone to take dictation; for example, you can speak words that you want to send in a text or email instead of typing them on the keyboard.
Getting Started
Siri gives you the ability to talk to your iPhone to control it and to dictate text. Siri also works with lots of iPhone apps—this feature enables you to accomplish many tasks by speaking instead of using your fingers on the iPhone’s screen. For example, you can hear, create, and send text messages; reply to emails; make phone and FaceTime calls; create and manage events and reminders; and much more. Using dictation, you can speak text into any supported app instead of typing. The SIRI SUGGESTIONS page presents people you communicate with, apps you use, and news you might be interested in so you do tasks very easily and quickly. The Siri Search bar is amazingly powerful and you can get to all sorts of information from one quick query.
In fact, Siri does so many things, it’s impossible to list them all in a short chapter like this one; you should give Siri a try for the tasks you perform and to get the information you need, and in many cases, Siri can handle what you want to do.
One particularly good thing about Siri is that you don’t have to train it to work with your voice; you can speak to it normally and Siri does a great job understanding what you say. Also, you don’t have to use any specific kind of phrases to have Siri do your bidding. Simply talk to Siri like you talk to people (well, you probably won’t be ordering other people around like you do Siri, but you get the idea).
Because Siri works so well and quickly, you might not realize that your iPhone has to be connected to the Internet for Siri and dictation to work. That’s because the words you speak are sent over the Internet, transcribed into text, and then sent back to your iPhone. If your iPhone isn’t connected to the Internet, this can’t happen, and if you try to use it, Siri reports that it can’t complete its tasks. Because your iPhone is likely to be connected to the Internet most of the time (via Wi-Fi or a cellular network), this really isn’t much of a limitation—but it is one of which you need to be aware.
Siri doesn’t take much to set up either; most of the time, you don’t need to do the steps in the next task as Siri is set up by default when you first turn on your iPhone. If you haven’t made any changes to the Siri settings, skip ahead to “Understanding Siri’s Personality.” If you have made changes to Siri’s settings, or just want to understand its options, proceed to the next section.
Just start speaking to your phone and be prepared to be amazed by how well it listens! You’ll find many examples in this chapter to get you going with specific tasks; from there, you can explore to learn what else Siri can do for you.
Setting Up Siri
There are several settings that impact how Siri works. In most cases, you can leave these settings in their default positions (including those you selected the first time your turned your iPhone on) and start using Siri right away (beginning with “Understanding Siri’s Personality” later in this chapter).
If you decide you want to make changes to Siri’s settings, you can use the following example steps that show you how to change the voice that Siri uses to speak to you along with the subsequent table that provides a description of the other Siri options available to you.
To change the voice Siri uses to speak to you, perform the following steps:
Tap Settings on the Home screen.
Swipe up the screen.
Tap General.
Tap Siri.
Tap Siri Voice.
Tap the accent you want Siri to use (the options you see depend on the language currently selected).
Tap the gender of the voice you want Siri to use (the options you see depend on the language currently selected).
Tap Siri. Siri uses the voice you selected to speak to you. You can change the Siri settings using a similar pattern and the description of the options in the following table.
Siri Settings
Understanding Siri’s Personality
Siri’s personality is pretty simple because it follows a consistent pattern when you use it, and it always prompts you for input and direction when needed.
If Siri is already active, tap the Microphone icon at the bottom of the screen. If not, activate Siri using one of the following methods:
• Pressing and holding the Touch ID/Home button until the Siri screen appears and you feel the phone vibrate.
• Pressing and holding the center part of the buttons on the EarPods until the Siri screen appears and you hear the Siri tone.
• Saying “Hey Siri” (if you’ve enabled this setting) until the Siri screen appears and you hear the Siri tone.
This puts Siri in “listening” mode and the “What can I help you with?” text appears along with a line at the bottom of the screen that shows when Siri is hearing you. This screen indicates Siri is ready for your command. If you don’t speak within a second or two, Siri starts prompting you for a request and presents examples of what you can do.
Speak your command or ask a question. As you speak, the line at the bottom of the screen oscillates to show you that Siri is hearing your input, and Siri displays what it is hearing you say at the top of the screen. When you stop speaking, Siri goes into processing mode.
After Siri interprets what you’ve said, it provides two kinds of feedback to confirm what it heard: it displays what it heard on the screen and provides audible feedback to you (unless it’s disabled through the settings you learned about earlier). Siri then tries to do what it thinks you’ve asked and shows you the outcome.
If it needs more input from you, you’re prompted to provide it and Siri moves into “listening” mode automatically. If Siri asks you to confirm what it is doing or to make a selection, do so. Siri completes the action and displays what it has done; it also audibly confirms the result (again unless audible feedback is disabled as described earlier). If you want Siri to do more for you, tap the Microphone icon at the bottom of the screen and speak your command. If you want to work with the object Siri created for you in its associated app, tap the object Siri presents.
Also, how Siri interacts with you can depend on how it was activated. For example, if you started the interaction using the verbal “Hey Siri” option, Siri assumes you want to interact verbally and may respond with other options than you would see or hear when you activate Siri manually. When you ask Siri to show you your appointments for the day in this mode, you see the summary, but then Siri asks if you want to hear the details; if you say yes, Siri reads each event to you. When you activate Siri by using the Touch ID/Home button with the same request, Siri stops after showing you the summary.
When you’re done with Siri, you can lock the iPhone or tap the Touch ID/Home button to move back to the Home screen or to the app you were using.
Siri uses this pattern for all the tasks it does, but often Siri needs to get more information from you, such as when there are multiple contacts that match the command you’ve given. Siri prompts you for what it needs to complete the work. Generally, the more specific you make your initial command, the fewer steps you have to work through to complete it. For example, if you say “Meet Will at the park,” Siri may require several prompts to get you to tell it who Will is and what time you want to meet him at the park. If you say “Meet William Wallace at the park on 10/17 at 10 am,” Siri will likely be able to complete the task in one step.
The best way to learn how and when Siri can help you is to try it—a lot. You find a number of examples in the rest of this chapter to get started.
Following are some other Siri tidbits:
• If Siri doesn’t automatically quit “listen” mode after you’ve finished speaking, tap the oscillating line.
• If you are having trouble with Siri understanding commands, speak a bit more slowly and make sure you firmly enunciate and end your words.
• Don’t pause too long between words or sentences because Siri interprets pauses of a certain length to mean that you are done speaking and goes into processing mode.
• If Siri doesn’t understand what you want, or if you ask it a general question, it will often perform a web search for you. Siri takes what it thinks you are looking for and does a search. You then see the results page for the search Siri performed and you might have to manually open and read the results by tapping the listing you want to see. It opens in the Safari app. In some cases, Siri reads the results to you.
• When Siri presents information to you on the screen, you can often tap that information to move into the app with which it is associated. For example, when you tap an event that Siri has created, you move into the Calendar app where you can add more detail using that app’s tools.
• When Siri needs direction from you, it presents your options on the screen, such as Yes, Cancel, Confirm, lists of names, and so on. You can speak these items or tap them to select them.
• Siri is very useful for some tasks, such as creating reminders, responding to text messages, and so on, but not so useful for others, such as inputting search criteria, because it can take longer to use Siri than to just type your input.
• Siri is not so good at editing text you dictate. In many cases, your only option is to replace the text you’ve dictated.
• To use Siri effectively, you should experiment with it by trying to say different commands or similar commands in different ways. Saying “Meet with Wyatt Earp at 10am on 11/3 in my office” requires fewer steps than saying “Meet with Wyatt Earp” because you’ve given Siri all the information it needs to complete the task.
• When Siri can’t complete a task that it thinks it should be able to do, it usually responds with the “I can’t connect to the network right now,” or “Sorry, I don’t know what you mean.” This indicates that your iPhone isn’t connected to the Internet, the Siri server is not responding, or Siri just isn’t able to complete the command for some other reason. If your iPhone is connected to the Internet, try the command again.
• When Siri can’t complete a task that it knows it can’t do, it will respond by telling you so. Occasionally, you can get Siri to complete the task by rephrasing it, but typically you have to use an app directly to get it done.
• If you have a passcode set to protect your iPhone’s data (which you should), Siri might not be able to complete some tasks because the phone is locked. If that happens, simply unlock your phone and continue with what you were doing.
• Siri is really good at retrieving all sorts of information for you. This can include schedules, weather, directions, unit conversions, etc. When you need something, try Siri first, as trying it is really the best way to learn how Siri can work for you.
Learning How to Use Siri by Example
As mentioned earlier in this chapter, the best way to learn about Siri is to use it. Following are a number of tasks for which Siri is really helpful. Try these to get some experience with Siri and then explore on your own to make Siri work at its best for you.
Using Siri to Make Voice Calls
You can use Siri to make calls by speaking. This is especially useful when you are using your iPhone in handsfree mode.
Activate Siri (such as by pressing and holding the Touch ID/Home button).
Say “Call name numberlabel,” where name is the person you want to call and numberlabel is the label of the specific number you want to call, such as Home, Work, iPhone, and so on. Siri identifies the contact you named. If the contact has only one number or you were specific about which number you want to call, Siri places the call and you move into the Phone app. If you weren’t specific about the number you want to call (you simply said “Call name”) and the person has multiple numbers, Siri lists the numbers available and asks you which number to use.
Speak the label for the number you want to call, or tap it. Siri dials the number for you and you move to the Phone app as if you had dialed the number yourself.
Placing FaceTime Calls
You can also use Siri to make FaceTime calls by saying “FaceTime name.”
Composing New Email with Siri
To create email with Siri, do the following:
Activate Siri.
Say “Send email to name,” where name is the person you want to email. Siri creates a new email addressed to the name you spoke. (If the recipient has more than one email address, Siri prompts you to choose the address you want to use.)
Speak the subject of the email. Siri inserts the subject, and then prompts you for the body of the message.
More Than One Recipient?
To send an email to more than one recipient, say “and” between each name as in, “Send email to William Wallace and Edward Longshanks.” Siri adds each address before and after the “and.”
Speak the body of the email. As you speak, you can include punctuation; for example, to end a sentence, say the word “period” or to end a question, say the words “question mark.” When Siri completes the email, it displays the message on the screen and prompts you to send it.
Say “send” to send the email or “cancel” to delete it. If you say “send,” Siri sends the message, confirms it will be sent, and plays the sent mail sound when it is.
Replying to Emails with Siri
You can also use Siri to speak replies to emails you’ve read. Here’s how:
Open the message to which you want to reply.
Activate Siri.
Say “reply to this email.” Siri prompts you for what you want your reply to say.
Complete and send the reply; this works just like when you create a new message.
>>>Go Further: Doing More in Email with Siri
Following are some other ways to use Siri for email:
• If you tell Siri to “Read email,” Siri tells you how many emails are in your Inboxes and starts reading the time and date of the most recent email message followed by the subject and sender of the message. Siri then does the same for the next email until it has read a number of them. When it gets to the last message it reads, it prompts you to ask if you want to hear the entire list. On the screen, Siri lists the emails; you can tap an email message to read it yourself.
• Siri can read the content of email messages to you when you speak commands that tell it which email you want it to read, such as “Read most recent email” or “Read last email from William Wallace.” Siri reads the entire message to you.
• To edit an email Siri created, say “Change.” Siri prompts you to change the subject, change the message, cancel it, or send it. If you choose one of the change options, you can replace the subject or the body of the message. To change just some of the subject or body or to change the recipients, tap the message and edit it in the Mail app.
• You can start a new and completely blank email by saying “New email.” Siri prompts you for the recipients, subject, and body.
• You can address a new email and add the subject with one statement, such as “Send email to William Wallace about flying.”
• You can retrieve your email at any time by activating Siri and saying “Check email.” Siri checks for new email and then announces how many emails you have received since the oldest message in your Inboxes was received. If you don’t have any new email messages, Siri announces how many email messages are currently in your inboxes.
• You can determine if you have emails from a specific person by asking something like, “Any email from William Wallace?” Siri’s reply includes the number of emails in your Inboxes from William and displays them on the screen. Tap an email to read it.
• You can forward an email you are reading by saying “Forward this email” and then following Siri’s lead to complete the process.
Having Messages Read to You
The Messages app is among the best to use with Siri because you can speak just about any task you would normally do with messages. Especially useful is Siri’s ability to read new messages to you. When you receive new text messages, do the following to have Siri read them to you:
When you receive a text notification, activate Siri.
Speak the command “Read new text messages.” Siri reads all the new text messages you’ve received, announcing the sender before reading each message. You have the option to reply (covered in the next task) or have Siri read the message again.
Siri reads each new message in turn until it has read all of them and then announces, “That’s it” to let you know it has read all of them.
Siri only reads new text messages to you when you aren’t on the Messages screen. If you’ve already read all your messages and you aren’t in the Messages app, when you speak the command “Read text messages,” Siri tells you that you have no new messages.
Reading Old Messages
To read an old message, move back to the conversation containing the message you want to hear. Activate Siri and say the command “Read text message.” Siri reads the most recent text message to you.
Replying to Messages with Siri
You can also use Siri to speak replies to messages you’ve received. Here’s how:
Listen to a message.
At the prompt, say “Reply.” Siri prepares a reply to the message.
Speak your reply. Siri displays your reply.
At the prompt, say “Send” to send it, “Cancel” to delete it, or “Change” to replace it. If you tell Siri that you want to send the message, Siri sends it and then confirms that it was sent.
Sending New Messages with Siri
To send a new message to someone, do the following:
Activate Siri.
Say “Send text to name,” where name is the person you want to text. Siri confirms your command and prepares to hear your text message.
Speak your message. Siri listens and then prepares your message.
If you want to send the message, say “Send.” Siri sends the message.
>>>Go Further: Doing More Messaging with Siri
Following are some other ways to use Siri with messaging:
• If you say “Change” after you have created a new message, Siri prompts you to replace the message with a different one. If you say “Review” after creating a new message, Siri reads your message back to you. If you say “Cancel,” Siri stops the process and deletes the message.
• To send a text message to more than one recipient, say “and” between each name; as in, “Send text to William Wallace and Edward Longshanks.”
• You can speak punctuation, such as “period” or “question mark” to add it to your message.
• You can tap buttons that Siri presents on the screen, such as Send or Cancel, to take those actions on the message you are working on.
• Messages you receive or send via Siri are stored in the Messages app just like messages you receive or send by tapping and typing.
• You can dictate into a text message you start in the Messages app (you learn about dictating later in this chapter).
Using Siri to Create Events
Siri is useful for capturing meetings and other events you want to add to your calendars. To create an event by speaking, do the following steps:
Activate Siri.
Speak the event you want to create. There are a number of variations in what you can say. Examples include “Set up a meeting with William Wallace on Friday at 10 am,” “Doctor appt on Thursday at 1 pm,” and so on. If you have any conflicts with the event you are setting up, Siri lets you know about them.
Say “Confirm” if you don’t have any conflicts or “Yes” if you do and you still want to have the appointment confirmed; you can also tap Confirm. Siri adds the event to your calendar. Say “Cancel” to cancel the event.
To add more information to an event Siri has created for you, tap it on the confirmation screen. You move into the Calendar app and can edit the event just like events you create within that app.
Invitees
If you include the name of someone for whom you have an email address, Siri automatically sends invitations. If you include a name that matches more than one contact, Siri prompts you to choose the contact you want to invite. If the name doesn’t match a contact, Siri enters the name but doesn’t send an invitation.
Using Siri to Create Reminders
Using Siri to create reminders is one of the more useful things you can do with Siri, assuming you find reminders useful of course. Here’s how:
Activate Siri.
Speak the reminder you want to create. Examples include “Remind me to buy the A-10 at Motion RC,” “Remind me to finish Chapter 10 at 10 a.m. on Saturday,” “Remind me to buy milk when I leave work,” and so on. Siri provides a confirmation of what you asked. If you didn’t mention a time or date when you want to be reminded, Siri prompts you to provide the details of when you want to be reminded.
Speak the date and time when you want to be reminded. If you included a date and time in your original reminder request, you skip this step. Unlike some of the other tasks, Siri creates the reminder without confirming it with you.
If you don’t want to keep the reminder, activate Siri and say “Remove.”
To add detail to the reminder, tap it. You move into the Reminders app and can add more information to the reminder, as you can when you create one manually.
>>>Go Further: Going Further with Siri to Manage Time
Following are some other ways to use Siri with the Calendar, Reminders, and Clock apps:
• You can change events with Siri, too. For example, if you have a meeting at 3 p.m., you can move it by saying something like “Move my 3 pm meeting to Friday at 6 pm.”
• You can get information about your events with Siri by saying things such as “Show me today’s appointments,” “Do I have meetings on November 3?,” “What time is my first appointment tomorrow?,” “What are my appointments tomorrow?,” and so on. Siri tells you about the events and shows you what they are on the screen. You can tap any event to view it in the Calendar app.
• You can speak to your iPhone to set alarms. Tell Siri what you want and when you want the alarm to be set. For example, you can say something like “New alarm alarmname 6 am tomorrow,” where alarmname is the label of the alarm. Siri sets an alarm to go off at that time and gives it the label you speak. It displays the alarm on the screen along with a status button so you can turn it off if you change your mind. You don’t have to label alarms, and you can just say something like “Set alarm 6 am tomorrow.” However, a label can be useful to issue other commands. For example, if an alarm has a name, you can turn off an alarm by saying “Turn off alarmname.” Any alarms you create with Siri can be managed just like alarms you create directly in the Clock app.
• To set a countdown timer, tell Siri to “Set timer for x minutes,” where x is a number of minutes (you can do the same to set a timer for seconds or hours, too). You can also reset the time, pause it, and so on by speaking.
• You can get information about time by asking questions, such as “What time is it?,” “What is the date?,” and so on. You can add location information to the time information, too, as in “What time is it in London, England?”
• Tapping any confirmation Siri displays takes you back into the related app. For example, if you tap a clock that results from your asking what time it is, you can tap that clock to move into the Clock app. If you ask about your schedule today, you can tap any of the events Siri presents to move back into the Calendar app to work with them.
• When you use Siri to create events and reminders, they are created on your default calendar (events) or reminder list (reminders).
Using Siri to Get Information
Siri is a great way to get information about lots of different topics in many different areas. You can ask Siri for information about subjects, places in your area, unit conversion (such as inches to centimeters), and so on. Just try speaking what you want to learn to best get the information you need. Here’s an example looking for pizza places in my area:
Activate Siri.
Say something like, “Show me pizza restaurants close to me.” Siri presents a list of results that match your query and even provides a summary of reviews at the top of the screen. (You must have Location Services enabled for this to work.)
Siri is also useful for getting information about topics. Siri responds by conducting a web search and showing you the result. For example, suppose you want to learn about William Wallace. Activate Siri and say, “Tell me about William Wallace.” Siri responds with information about your topic. You can have Siri read the information by activating Siri and saying “Read.” Siri reads the results (this doesn’t always work; it works best when the results are presented via Wikipedia or something similar).
Using Siri to Play Music
You can also play music by telling Siri which music you want to hear.
Activate Siri.
Tell Siri the music you want to hear. There are a number of variations in what you can say. Examples include “Play album Time of My Life,” “Play song Gone by Switchfoot,” “Play playlist Jon McLaughlin,” and so on. Siri provides a confirmation of what you asked and begins playing the music.
To move into the Music app to control the music with your fingers, tap Open Music.
Using Siri to Get Directions
With Siri, it’s easy to get directions—you don’t even have to stop at a gas station to ask.
Activate Siri.
Speak something like “Show me directions from Indianapolis Motor Speedway to Lucas Oil Stadium.” If you don’t include the “from” part, Siri assumes you want directions from your current location (as in “Show me directions to Lucas Oil Stadium”).
If Siri needs you to confirm one or more of the locations, tap the correct one. Siri uses the Maps app to generate directions.
To start turn-by-turn instructions, tap Start.
It’s Not All Good
Voice commands to Siri work very well, but they aren’t perfect. Make sure you confirm your commands by listening to the feedback Siri provides when it repeats them or reviewing the feedback Siri provides on the screen. Sometimes, a spoken command can have unexpected results, which can include making a phone call to someone in the Contacts app. If you don’t catch such a mistake before the call is started, you might be surprised to hear someone answering your call instead of hearing music you intended to play. You can put Siri in listening mode by tapping the Microphone button, and then saying “no” or “stop” to stop Siri should a verbal command go awry.
Using Dictation to Speak Text Instead of Typing
You can use the iPhone’s dictation capability to speak text into any app, such as Mail, Messages, and so on. In fact, any time you see the Microphone button on the keyboard, dictation is available to you. Here’s how this works:
In the app you are using, put the cursor where you want the text you will dictate to start. For example, if you are creating an email, tap in the body.
Tap the Microphone key on the virtual keyboard.
Speak the text you want to add. For instance, when you create a new message, you can speak punctuation, but in this mode, you can create a new paragraph by saying “new paragraph.” While you are speaking, you see the line that oscillates as you speak and the text you are speaking at the location of the cursor.
Tap Done when you finish your dictation. The Dictation box closes, and the keyboard reappears. The text you spoke is part of the message. From there, you can edit it just like text you’ve typed.
Using Siri to Open Apps
As you accumulate apps on your iPhone, it can take several taps and swipes to get to a specific app, such as one that is stored in a folder that isn’t on the page of the Home screen you are viewing. With Siri, you can open any app on your phone with a simple command.
Activate Siri.
Say “Open appname,” where appname is the name of the app you want to open. Siri opens the app for you and you move to the last screen in that app you were using.
Getting Suggestions from Siri
New! This chapter has focused on speaking to Siri and having it perform your command, but Siri has a few more tricks ups it digital sleeve. In addition to its amazing ability to respond to your voice, Siri also provides the very useful SIRI SUGGESTIONS screen. This screen shows you the people you’ve interacted with recently and makes it easy to contact them again. It also shows apps you have used recently. In the NEARBY section, you see locations that might of interest to you based on your current location. At the bottom of the screen, you see news that might be of interest to you.
No Siri Suggestions?
If you don’t see the SIRI SUGGESTIONS screen, open the Settings app, tap General, tap Spotlight Search, and set the Siri Suggestions switch to on (green).
To access Siri suggestions, move to the Home screen and swipe all the way to the right. The SIRI SUGGESTIONS screen appears. On this screen you can do the following:
• Tap in the Search bar to type a search or tap the Microphone to dictate a search. Siri presents the results of the search to you based on the source of information, such as Wikipedia, a web search, YouTube, etc. You can tap a result to move to it. You can also tap the commands at the bottom of the screen, such as Search App Store, to search in other places.
• Tap Show More to expand any of the sections you see, such as SIRI SUGGESTIONS. The section opens so you see more of its information.
• Tap a contact to reveal options you can use to communicate with her via a phone call, message, or FaceTime; tap the Info button (i) to move to the contact’s information in the Contacts app.
• Tap an app you’ve used recently to return to it.
• Tap a category of location shown in the NEARBY section to move to the Maps app and see a list of places of that type. You can use the Maps app to quickly get directions to a specific location.
• Swipe up and down in the NEWS section to browse news stories. Tap a story to read its detail in the News app.