Speaking To Siri - Take Control Books

Speaking to Siri

Siri is your voice-activated personal assistant, able to make phone calls, play music, read your email messages, tell you if it’s going to rain, and even book restaurant reservations. In iOS 9, Siri learns a couple of new tricks and sports a new design ①.

Summoning Siri

1. Hold down the Home button. When you feel two vibrations (iPhone only) or hear a chime and see “What can I help you with?” Siri is listening.
2. Release the Home button (or gain more control by continuing to hold it down).
3. Speak ②. Say something like, “Siri, what’s it like being you?”

   

4. Be quiet (and if you are still holding the Home button, release it).

Note: All iOS 9 devices can use Siri, except for the iPad 2.

Setting up Siri

Visit Settings > General > Siri to access Siri settings. If the Siri switch is not on, turn it on.

Other important options are these:

• Your spoken language: Tap Language to select the language that you want to speak to Siri with. Generally, you should choose the language you are most fluent in, but this is also a fun way to practice speaking in a foreign language.
• Siri’s accent: Tap Siri Voice. Depending the selected language, you may see accent options. Tap the accent that you want to hear when Siri speaks.
• Siri’s gender: Tap Siri Voice and pick male or female.

Note: If you don’t see a Siri Voice option, try picking a different language.

• Voice Feedback: If you’re tired of Siri’s backtalk, tap Voice Feedback, and then select Control with Ring Switch (or Control with Mute Setting) to disable Siri’s voice when Mute is enabled.
• Introducing yourself: You can tell Siri, “Take me home,” to get directions to your residence, but first, Siri must know who you are. Tap My Info and then pick your contact entry from the list. If you don’t have one, make one in the Contacts app.

  To check who Siri thinks you are, you can ask “Who am I?

Tip: To create a new contact card, whether for yourself or a family member, open the Contacts app and tap the Add + button at the top of the main screen (cancel the Search field if you don’t see an Add + button).

Introduce Your Family

Siri lets you refer to people by relationship. For example, I can tell Siri to “call my wife” instead of “call Hannah Centers.” You can teach Siri the identity of most of your family members.

To set this up, make sure you have a card for the person in the Contacts app.

Then do one of the following:

• Tell Siri: Invoke Siri and tell her about the relationship. For example, I can say, “Hannah Centers is my wife”; after confirmation, that relationship is set.
• Tell the Contacts app: Open your card in Contacts, tap Edit in the upper right, scroll down, tap “add related name,” tap the default relationship to pick the desired relationship, tap the info icon, and select the person’s card. Tap Done.

More Siri Commands

• Song identification: While a song is playing, activate Siri and ask what song is playing. If Siri finds a match, you see the name of the song, the artist, and a button to buy the song in the iTunes Store.
• Search Apple’s media stores: Try saying “search the App Store for Minecraft.”
• New! Search photos and videos: In iOS 9, you can use Siri to search for photos and videos by time or location. For example: “Show me photos from San Francisco,” or “Show me videos from Christmas 2014.” (For more, read New! Siri Can Search in Photos.)
• New! Remind me of “this”: Siri can create contextual reminders for Safari Web pages, Mail messages, Maps locations, and more. Tell Siri, “Remind me about this,” while looking at a relevant item.

Five Useful Siri Commands

Siri understands dozens of commands. Here are five of the most useful.

• Set an alarm: There are several ways to set an alarm. You can say, “Set an alarm for 6 A.M.” before bed ③. Or when you lie down for a nap, you can say, “Wake me in 30 minutes.” You can also say, “Delete my alarm,” to view a list of alarms to delete.

• Set a timer: I use this all the time in the kitchen. Tell Siri to set a timer for however many hours, minutes, or seconds you need ④. For example, “Set a timer for 5 minutes.”

• Remind me to…: You can tell Siri to remind you of things, like “Remind met to take the trash out Tuesday night,” but what I’ve found even more useful is telling Siri to remind me to do a task when I reach or leave a destination ⑤. For example, “Remind me to change the cat litter when I get home,” or “Remind me to pick up diapers when I leave.”

• Call: Of course you can use Siri to place phone calls, which is especially handy while driving. Just say “Call a contact’s name,” to initiate a call (if your contact has multiple phone numbers, Siri will ask you which one to call—or you can preempt that step by saying “Call Jane Smith’s iPhone.”). If you’ve configured relationships, as explained above, you can instead say, “Call my mom,” or “Call my spouse.”
• Open sesame: Siri can open apps for you. Just say “Open,” and then the app name. For example, if I want to see if it’s going to rain, I can say, “Open Dark Sky.”

Using Siri Hands-Free

Siri can be used hands-free by saying, “Hey Siri,” but this requires two conditions. First, your device must be plugged in to a power source. Second, Allow “Hey Siri” must be on in Settings > General > Siri.

However, the new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus do not require a power source in order to use “Hey Siri.”

Third-party Apps for Siri

Apple doesn’t offer all developers a way to integrate their apps with the Siri voice assistant, but a handful of third-party apps are integrated. Here are a few examples:

• Fandango: Siri can not only tell you local movie show times, but also help you buy movie tickets ⑥. To purchase tickets, you must install the free Fandango Movies app.

• MLB.com At Bat: Siri can give you baseball schedules and stats, by asking things like, “When is the next Yankees game,” and if you have the MLB.com At Bat app installed, you can summon more details.
• OpenTable: Siri can help you to book the hottest table in town, but to do so, you must install the free OpenTable app.
• WolframAlpha Viewer: Siri can call upon WolframAlpha to answer complex mathematical questions, like “What is the value of pi?” With the free WolframAlpha Viewer app installed, you can see additional detail.
• Yahoo Sports: Out of the box, Siri has access to all kinds of fun sports knowledge. You can ask, “When is the next NFL game?” or “Who is taller: Kobe or LeBron?” If the free Yahoo Sports app is installed, you can even tap the Yahoo logo to open the app for more info ⑦.

Copyright © 2015, Josh Centers. All rights reserved.