Since Siri’s release in 2011, people have maintained that the virtual assistant has not developed in terms of its abilities much, but rather all that is set to change with iOS 10. The witty assistant has lastly been opened to third party developers, so they can integrate their apps with Siri commands, permitting the virtual assistant to begin demonstrating more helpful. In case you have upgraded your existingiPhone to iOS 10, or if you have purchased the new iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus, you should start using Siri more. Additionally accessible in macOS Sierra, Siri on the Mac will help you improve your work process on your laptop as well.
[ad type=”banner”]1. Use Siri to Send WhatsApp Messages
Siri was always able to use the default Messages app to send messages to your contacts, but now we can use it to even send WhatsApp messages. To use this feature, ensure that you have updated WhatsApp to the latest version available. Then, go to Settings -> Siri -> App Support and turn on the toggle beside “WhatsApp“.
steps to send messages using WhatsApp:
Launch Siri, and say “Send a message to <contact_name> with WhatsApp“. Obviously, replace “contact_name” with the name of the person that you want to send the message to. In this case, Sending a message to wiki. Siri will then prompt you to tell her what the message is, simply speak the message out.
Then, Siri will proceed to confirm if you want to send the message, simply say “Yes”, and your message will be sent.
So, now you can use Siri to send WhatsApp messages to your contacts with ease.
Note: There are a lot more apps that support Siri in iOS 10, such as Lyft, Square Cash, Between, LinkedIn, Map My Run, Discover Mobile, Zenly, Canva, The Roll, Swingmail, and more.
2. Take Me Drunk I’m Home
This is a fun command that Siri replies to in a clever manner, but also provides a useful response at the same time. So, the next time you’re getting back home from a bar crawl with your friends, simply launch Siri and say “Take me drunk, I’m home”, and proceed to taking a cab home, instead of driving yourself.
3. Hey Siri, what’s it Like to Be You
If you’re bored and looking to have some fun, you can always chat with Siri. The virtual assistant comes packed with some really funny responses. One such command that you can try out, is asking Siri what it’s like to be her. Simply launch Siri and say “Hey Siri, what’s it like to be you?”.
4.Use Siri to Recognize Songs
If you hear a song, and you are going to use Shazam to find that out. But, there’s no need to use an extra app for this feature. Siri automatically hooks into Shazam (even without the app) and can recognize songs using Shazam’s database. To do this, all you need to launch Siri, and say “What song is this?“. Siri will start listening to the music, and soon, it will give you a result from Shazam, and if you use Apple Music, you can even stream it directly by tapping on the play icon.
5. Dictation
Already you know that Siri can send messages using iMessage. But if you miss using punctuation in Siri, you’re in luck, because Siri can add punctuation, as well. When you’re dictating a message, or note to Siri, simply speak out the names of the punctuation marks that you want, and Siri will automatically replace their names with the punctuation marks. So, if you want to add a comma, just say “comma”, “period” for a “.” and so on. Suppose you want to send a message saying “Hey! What’s up?”, you can say “Hey exclamation What’s up question mark“, and Siri will automatically change it to “Hey! What’s up?”.
6. Create and Edit Calendar Events
To create a calendar event, just say “Schedule an event at <time>“, so if you needed to schedule an event at 6 PM, you can say “Schedule an event at 6 PM today”, and Siri will create it for you. You can even ask Siri to edit already existing events. Say we wanted to change the 6 PM event we created earlier, to 7 PM. we can simply say “Change my 6 PM event to 7 PM“, and Siri will help you.
7. Remind Me About This Later
we should have the link saving app called Pocket . Say you’re reading a Note, and you want to continue reading it later, just launch Siri and say “Remind me about this later”, and Siri will add it to your Reminders. If you want to be reminded at a specific time, you can say something like “Remind me about this at 6 PM today“, and Siri will set a reminder that will alert you at 6 PM. You can simply tap on the reminder to open up the note that you wanted to read.
Note: Using Siri to save links is not exactly better than using Pocket, because, while Pocket downloads the links so we can view them offline, Siri will only save the link, and we will need to be connected to the internet to open the webpage at a later stage.
8. Search for Services Nearby
If you need to search places around you, you can use Siri. Say you’re driving, and you realize that you’re low on gas, you can simply launch Siri and say “I’m running low on petrol”, or “I’m running low on gas“, and Siri will find and list the nearest filling stations so you can refill the fuel in your car. This works for other services as well, including pharmacies (“I need an Aspirin”), or services like plumbers/electricians (“I need a good electrician”), etc.
9. Schedule Events in Different Timezones
If you track a lot of TV shows but you’re always figuring out the time difference between the country where the show airs, and your country, so you can catch it on television. You can make this easier by asking Siri to schedule the event. For example, say an event starts in the US at 10 AM PDT, and I’m in India; you can simply ask Siri to “Schedule an event at 10 AM PDT“, and Siri will automatically add it according to Indian Standard Time. That is one trick that will definitely prove helpful to people that need to follow things in different timezones.
10. Close Siri
Once you’re done using Siri, it open on the screen and if you’re in a situation where pressing the home button is not feasible, you can simply say “Bye” to Siri, and it will close down automatically.
Siri on Mac
With the release of macOS Sierra, Siri has made its way into MacBooks and iMacs all around the world.
Here some of the useful things that Siri can do on the desktop.
1. Find Files
we can use Siri to find files on your Mac. This can be used as a command to find all of your files, and you can even add constraints to it, to find files from a specific time frame. For example, if you launch Siri and say “Find my files”, it will list all of the files that you have on my Mac. If you want to see the files from last week, you can say “Find my files from last week“, and Siri will only show the ones that you have created or modified in the last week.
2. Create Notes
We can use Siri to create notes on your Mac. Simply you can launch Siri, say “Create a note titled Daily Update“, and Siri will create a note with the title. Once you have done, you can add to it by saying “Add writing article”, and since Siri can understand context, it will add “Writing Article” to the note it created.
3. Launch Apps
we can also use Siri to launch apps on your Mac, just like on your iPhone. Simply launch Siri and say “Launch <app name>“, and Siri will launch the app. This may be useful in certain situations where you don’t want to use Spotlight to find the app.
4. Find Information About Your Mac
Siri on the Mac is basically about reducing the number of clicks we need to make in order to achieve a result which is why you can ask Siri to tell you details about your Mac. So the next time you want to find out how much free space you have left on your Mac, you can simply launch Siri, and say “How much free space is available on my Mac“, and Siri will tell you the amount of space which you have.
Note: You can even ask Siri “How much free space is available on my iCloud account”.
5. Find Photos
We can ask Siri to find Photos from specific time spans, simply by saying “Find photos from last week“, and it will open the Photos app, and only show the photos that were added last week. If you use geo-tagging, you can even ask Siri to filter photos by locations.
6. FaceTime with Contacts
If some of your contacts also use a Mac or an iPhone, we can use FaceTime to start an audio or a video call with them, over the internet. However, if you don’t need to launch the FaceTime app, search for the contact and then proceed to calling them, you can ask Siri to do it for you. Simply launch Siri, and say “FaceTime <contact_name>“, and Siri will start a FaceTime call with the contact.
7. Search Images Off the Web
Siri can do on the Mac is search for images off the web. So, the next time you’re working on a report and need to add an image of a panda to it, simply launch Siri and ask it to “Search the web for images of Pandas “. Siri will bring up results that you can use in your report.
8. Find Schedules for Your Favorite Sports Team
If you find it difficult to remember the schedule for your favorite team, you can outsource that task to Siri. Simply launch the virtual assistant, and say “When is <team_name’s> next match“, and Siri will give you the date and time for the next match that your favorite team will be playing.
9. Change System Settings on Mac
You can use Siri on Mac to control and change the system settings on your Mac. For instance, if you want to toggle Bluetooth or WiFi, or if you need to lower or increase the brightness of the screen, you can ask Siri to do it for you. You can even ask Siri whether a particular toggle is on or not by saying things like “Is Bluetooth on”, “Is WiFi on“, etc.
10. Copy Siri Answers as Photos
Now that we know how to use Siri to get answers to a variety of queries. You can drag and drop Siri results into apps like Notes to add it into a note as an image. If you searched for images off the web, you can even drag and drop an image from the result into the app you’re working. This will definitely make it easier to create all those presentations and reports.
