How to Use Siri

Press and hold the iPhone’s Home button. This is the round button at the bottom of the phone screen. This causes the Siri menu to appear after a few seconds; Siri will show up in “listening” mode and wait for your request.

• If your iPhone uses AssistiveTouch (the virtual Home button) because the Home button is broken, you’ll tap the AssistiveTouch tile on the screen and select Siri (or press and hold the Home icon).
• You can also say “Hey Siri” out loud if “Hey Siri” is enabled.

Wait for the rainbow color to appear at the bottom of the screen. When you see the color segment displayed, feel free to tell Siri.

Ask or say something to Siri. While Siri can handle most iOS-related requests (such as calling a friend), Siri will have to scour the internet to answer more complex questions.

Touch ? . This is the button in the bottom left corner of the Siri screen. This shows you a list of apps that Siri can link to and a brief user guide.

Press the Home button again. You’ll do this to turn off Siri.

• You can also say “Goodbye” if Siri is still in listening mode.

Activate Siri. This will open Siri in listening mode.

Say “Call [Name]” to make a call. If you specify the name of a person in your iPhone contacts, Siri will call that person right away.

• If your contacts have many of the same names, Siri will ask you to choose one. You can say that name to Siri, or tap the name of the person to call to make the call.

Say “FaceTime [Name]” (Facetime [name]) to make a FaceTime call. This is the same as when you make a call; if you say the contact name and Siri gets confused, you’ll be asked to confirm the name of the person you want to call.

• If the person you want to contact doesn’t have an iPhone, the FaceTime call will still start and end quickly.

Say “Tell [Name]” followed by a message. When you do this, remember to say the exact text of the message after saying the name of the person to contact.

• For example, if you want to wish a friend a speedy recovery, say “Tell Nam I hope you’re feeling better”. Thus, Siri will generate a message with the content “I hope you’re feeling better”.

Say “Yes” after Siri reads your message aloud. This is the action to send the message.

• You can also review the message and check spelling before saying “Yes”, or you can tap Send .

Say “Send an email to [Name]”. Siri will fill in the contact’s name in the “To” field of the new email and ask you to answer the following questions:

• What’s the subject of your email? (What’s the subject of the email?) – Tell Siri the title you want the email to be.
• What would you like it to say? (What do you want to write in the email?) – This is when you tell Siri the content of the email.
• Are you ready to send it? (Are you ready to send an email?) – Siri will say this after reading the email body aloud. Say Yes to send the email, or No to ask Siri to put it on hold.

Ask Siri to search the Internet. Say “Search the web” followed by your keyword. Siri will search for this topic and show you a list of related web pages.

Ask Siri to schedule a meeting. You just need to say “Set up meeting at noon tomorrow”. Siri will say “OK, I set up your meeting for tomorrow. Are you ready for me to schedule it?” (Yes, I will schedule a meeting for you tomorrow. Are you ready for me to schedule it?). The screen will show you a calendar section with the correct date and time information. If a meeting is scheduled in advance, Siri will notify you immediately.

• Confirm with an affirmative answer or select Confirm .

Ask Siri to remind you of something. For example, you would say “Remind me to call An”. Siri will ask: “When would you like me to remind you?” (When do you want me to remind?). Now you need to tell Siri when to get a reminder, such as “at ten am tomorrow” (at 10 a.m. tomorrow), and then give an affirmative answer (or tap Confirm ) when asked if you want to set a reminder.

Ask Siri to check the weather. Say “What’s the weather like today?” (How is the weather today?). The screen will show local weather forecast information.

Ask Siri to set an alarm. You can say “Wake me up tomorrow at 6 am”. Siri will confirm the request by saying the alarm has been set at the time you requested.

Ask Siri to write a note. Say “Note that I worked for ten hours today”. The screen will show you the note with the content you requested.

Ask Siri for information. You might ask “How many cups are in a gallon?” (One gallon equals how many cups?). Siri will find the information and report the results to you.

Ask Siri to play a song. Say “Play [Song Name]” and Siri will play the song.

• Note, that song must be on your iPhone for Siri to be able to play the music.

Ask Siri to find a note, message, or contact. You’ll say “Find [this message]” to have Siri search for the right contact or file on your phone.

Create personal connections. If you say “[name in your Contacts] is my [relationship to you]” ([name in your contacts] is my [relationship to you]), Siri will remember the person with that title.

• For example, saying “Mai is my mom” will let you call your mom by asking Siri to “Call my mom” when you want to make a call.
• You can do the same thing with location (say, say “[name] is my favorite restaurant” for example) and organization, as long as the phone number or information Their other is saved in your contacts.
• You can even ask Siri to call you by a nickname. Say “Call me [name]” to teach Siri to call you by another name.

Siri bug fixes. If Siri misunderstood what you said, you can tap tap to edit below the misinterpreted request and retype the text. It takes you a little while to retype, but Siri will learn from it and understand you better next time.

Ask Siri to tell a joke. To relax, you can ask Siri to sing a song or say “knock knock”. You can also ask Siri to call you another way, such as “your highness,” and ask some questions to get to know Siri.

• iPhone users have found many funny things to ask Siri.

Ask Siri to flip a coin. If a coin isn’t available, you can ask Siri to flip a coin so you get a random answer of “heads” or “tails”.

Ask Siri to enable/disable something. To turn on/off the flashlight, Bluetooth or other function, simply command Siri.

Say “What can I say?” (What can I say?) to see a list of other requests Siri can make.

Turn on Dictation. You need to enable Dictation before using it. Similar to Siri, Dictation recognizes your speech, allowing you to enter content verbally. Dictation sends your speech to Apple’s servers for the information to be recognized and processed. ^[1]

• Open your iPhone’s Settings.
• Select General .
• Select Keyboard (Keyboard)
• Push the Enable Dictation slider to the “On” position.

Open an app that allows you to enter text. You can use Dictation anywhere a keyboard can be used. Open an app that allows you to enter text so that the keyboard appears on the screen. ^[2]

Tap the Dictation button next to the spacebar. This is the button with the microphone icon. This will start the dictation process.

Say what you want to type in a clear, easy-to-hear voice. Speak clearly and don’t try to speak quickly. You don’t need to pause after each word, but avoid saying words that stick together.

Say punctuation. Dictation will output what you say into a sentence, unless you add punctuation. To add punctuation, you must specify the punctuation to use. For example, to write “Hi there!” (Hello!), you would say “Hi there exclamation”. Here are a few common punctuation marks. ^[3]

• . – “period” or “full stop”
• , – “comma”
• "[...]" – “quote” and “end quote”
• ' – “apostrophe”
• ? – “question mark”
• ! – “exclamation” or “exclamation point”
• ( and ) – “left paren” and “right paren”

Start a new line or paragraph. Dictation will automatically space and capitalize the first letter of a new sentence after the punctuation mark, but you need to specify when you want to start a new line or create a new paragraph. Say “new line” to start a new line in the text or say “new paragraph” to start a new paragraph.