How to Use Siri

Siri is Apple’s voice recognition personal assistant on iPhone and iPad that allows users to execute voice commands. We’ll show you how to use Siri, how to customize it, and how to get the most out of your virtual personal assistant.

Siri first debuted in 2011 with the release of the iPhone 4s on iOS 5 and didn’t come to the iPad until the following year when iOS 6 was released, first appearing on the third-generation iPad.

The virtual assistant aims to be a hands-free solution for navigating your iPhone or iPad, and – sometimes – faster than you can do with your own fingers.

The reliability of Siri has been a hot topic since its release, but Apple is constantly improving it and we’ll show you how to use Siri and get the most out of it. You might be surprised at all he can do.

How to Use Siri

When you first set up your iPhone or iPad, Setup Assistant will ask you if you want to enable Siri. You most likely clicked yes, but if you didn’t, you may need to go into your device’s settings and enable it from there.

To do this, open the app and go to . From there, flip the switch to the right until it turns green. A popup will appear informing you that Apple is sending voice input and location data to their servers for processing. If that’s okay, tap .

From now on, every time you click and hold the Home button, Siri will be activated and you can start talking to him. When you finish saying a command, Siri will automatically stop listening and start giving you an answer. However, you can keep holding the Home button while saying your command and release it when you’re done (works on iOS 7.1 and newer). This speeds things up a bit because Siri doesn’t have to wait a few seconds to make sure you’re done speaking.

How to Customize Siri

Now that you have Siri running, you can start customizing it by changing some of its settings and even teaching Siri who your family is.

You probably already know that there are a few settings you can play with, but if not, we’ll give you an overview of all the Siri settings you can manage.

That’s all the settings in the Siri section of the Settings app, but there is one more setting you might consider changing. While still in the Settings app, tap on it. Go to the section titled “Allow Access While Locked” and make sure the toggle is turned off. This feature can be handy as you don’t need to unlock your device if you want to use Siri quickly, but it can open the door for iPhone thieves to access your device without having to unlock it.

So these are the settings you can change, but that’s not all. You can also tell Siri who your family is, that way “dad”, “mom”, “sister” etc. He’ll know who you’re talking about.

To do this, you can manually enter them all in the Contacts app, or save yourself some time and just say it to Siri itself. Press and hold the Home button until Siri pops up, then say something like “Bob Smith is my dad,” or if you’re like me and your contacts list your father’s name as “daddy,” say to Siri: “Daddy is my dad.” It will sound weird, but once Siri is set up, you can easily call her Siri your dad. Do this for all your family contacts. You can even let Siri know if you’re married by saying “Jane Smith is my wife.”

From now on, you can tell Siri commands like “Message my wife” or “call my dad”, making it easy to reach loved ones without too much awkward dialogue getting in your way.

Commands You Didn’t Know About

You probably know some simple commands you can say to Siri, and we’ve given some examples before, but here are some commands you might not have heard before.

Frankly, this is just a small sample of what you can do with Siri. If you have any neat Siri numbers of your own, mention them in the comments below.