Fun Siri Tricks

Fun Siri Tricks

Siri is a piece of iOS software that acts as an intelligent personal assistant and knowledge navigator for devices using iOS 5 or iOS6. By pressing and holding the ‘Home’ button (the button in the bottom centre of an iPhone), you bring up the application and perform actions by speaking to it. Think of it like a little robotic personal assistant.

Siri can be used for basic tasks, like calling a contact (simply say “Call [contact name]”), set a reminder (“On September 6^th remind me it’s mum’s birthday”) and finding out the weather (“What’s the weather like today?”). However, there are some tricks about Siri that you may not have known about. Here are 5 fun Siri tricks.

1)      Phonetic Spelling for Contacts

We all have at least one contact in our phone whose name is hard to pronounce. It makes using Siri to call them exceptionally difficult if it can’t pronounce the name correctly. The solution is simple: add phonetic spelling to the contact! Go to your Contacts and select which name you’d like to add a phonetic spelling to. Click on Edit in the top right-hand corner, then scroll down to the bottom. Select Add Field and then choose either Phonetic First Name or Phonetic Last Name. From here, you can spell out how the name sounds. For example, if your contact’s name is Megan Byrne, you’d put “MEG-ANN” and “BURN” into the fields. Siri should now be able to pronounce her name!

2)      Raise to Speak

Do you ever feel awkward asking Siri something in public? Does it feel strange holding up the iPhone to your mouth and speaking to it? Make it look like you’re on the phone by enabling the Raise to Speak option! Go to Settings, General and then Siri. Change the Raise to Speak option to On, and hey presto! Now, every time you raise your phone to your ear, Siri will be activated, making it easier and less weird-looking!

3)      Dictating with Punctuation

If you use Siri to write emails or text messages, they won’t be punctuated or formatted. You may not have realized, but you can use Siri Dictation Commands to properly write your pieces. To capitalize a word, all you need to do is say ‘cap’ beforehand. For example, ‘I have a cat named cap Todd’. For a copyright sign, simply say ‘copyright sign’.  Some are more obvious than others. Over at Crush Apps, they’ve written a blog listing all of the voice commands. You can view them here.

4)      Delete All Alarms

If you’re a busy person with a lot going on, you like to stay organized or you’re just really forgetful, you’ll probably have a lot of alarms set on your phone. These can often get confusing if you have too many. If you tell Siri to ‘Delete All Alarms’ it will clear them for you, so you can start from scratch. Easy!

5)      Set a Passcode

Anyone can use Siri on your iPhone, even when the phone is locked. If you want Siri to be private, you can set a passcode for it. This means nobody will be able to access information without knowing the code. Simply go to Settings, General, Passcode Lock and turn Siri Off. Now, it’s impossible for anyone to use Siri without the passcode.

 

Do you know any other cool Siri tricks? Let us know in the comments!