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Introduction
Siri isn’t marketed as an accessibility feature, but it can be very useful for visually impaired people.
Siri allows you to speak commands to, and ask questions of your iPhone or iPad.
The range of tasks that can be performed using spoken instructions to Siri is huge. You'll find some of the more useful commands below. Some of the commands here, for example those for making phone calls, are not available on iPads unless you also have an iPhone and have made the appropriate settings but most commands will work equally well on iPhones and iPads.
Recent iPhones and iPads that use Apple's new AI features, branded Apple Intelligence, have a different version of Siri from that available on older iPhones and iPads. If your device supports Apple Intelligence you will find "Apple Intelligence and Siri" in Settings in place of "Siri". Apple has delayed the introduction of long-promised significant improvements to the Apple Intelligence version of Siri. According to a leak published by Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, Apple is targeting iOS 26.4 for a significant update to Siri and this will probably be released in spring 2026. I believe everything here should work for now with both versions of Siri. I'll update my Siri pages when the versions diverge more significantly.
Where I refer to Siri settings below, I'll use Settings / Apple Intelligence & Siri to mean either that or Settings / Siri, depending on your iPhone or iPad model.
Just some of the things Siri can do
Phone calls and text messages
Siri can be used to make phone calls and send text messages with commands like:
"Ring Jane";
"Text Jamie I'm on my way" or just say "Text Jamie" and Siri will ask you for the message;
"Facetime Jean Smith";
"Facetime audio Jean Smith";
"Call Fred with WhatsApp";
hangup - "Hey Siri hangup" will end a phone or FaceTime call on iPhone 11 or later models (possibly not including iPhone SE 2nd and 3rd generation) -this needs to be enabled in Settings / Accessibility /Siri ;
"check my missed calls";
"check my calls";
"message Fred"; Siri will ask you to speak your message and then will either send it immediately or will let you check the message and then ask if you want to send it. This behaviour is selected in Settings / Apple Intelligence & Siri/ Messaging with Siri;
"message Fred with WhatsApp";
"voice message Fred" will send a voice message to another Apple user but will fail if the recipient doesn't use Apple;
"check my messages" will speak recent messages and invite you to reply
"check my messages from John" will speak recent messages from John and invite you to reply.
Checking notifications
"Check my notifications" will offer to speak all of the notifications in the notification centre
Opening apps
Siri can be used to open apps with commands like:
"Open mail" or "Launch mail";
"Open Amazon" or "Launch Amazon".
Having screens and sections of text spoken to you
"Speak screen" will speak the entire screen and will also display a speech controller that allows you to pause and resume speech, jump forward and back, change the speech speed and enable "touch to speak" which speaks sections of text you touch. This will only work if "speak screen" is turned on in Settings / Accessibility / Read & Speak. Although this works with VoiceOver turned on, it is probably best avoided by VoiceOver users who have alternative ways of having text spoken. For more detail please read "how to have screens and sections of screens spoken to you".
Changing settings
Siri can change some device settings and announce battery level:
“VoiceOver on”;
“VoiceOver off”;
"bluetooth on";
"bluetooth off";
"screen brighter";
"screen darker";
"Torch on";
"Torch off";
"Turn on do not disturb";
"Turn off do not disturb";
"What is the battery level" or just say "battery";
Go to sections in the Settings app
As well as being able to open the Settings app on its main page with "Open Settings", Siri can open VoiceOver settings;
"Open VoiceOver settings".
You may find some other sections of Settings that Siri can open but it's definitely not possible to open them all using Siri at present.
Media playback volume and Siri's volume
Siri can control the volume and playback of media, such as audiobooks, videos and music.
"Volume 50" will set the volume of media to 50% of maximum. This also controls VoiceOver speech volume. Volume can be set to any percentage;
"set Siri volume 50" or "set your volume to 50" will set Siri's speech volume to the specified percentage of maximum;
Media control
"Pause" will pause media playback, for example audiobooks or music.
"Resume" will resume media playback of your most recently played media.
"Resume" followed by the name of a media app may also resume that specific media, e.g. "resume Audible" will resume playback of your current Audible audiobook.
Around me and getting directions
Siri can tell you about things around you. For example:
"Where am I";
"Is the museum open?";
"Is Sainsbury's open?";
"Where is the nearest pharmacy?";
“What’s the temperature outside?”;
"Get walking directions to the Town Hall" will get you walking directions using Apple Maps;
"Get walking directions to the Town Hall using Google Maps" will get you walking directions using Google Maps;
Find apps in the App store
Siri can find apps in the App Sore for you, for example:
"Find Seeing A I in the App Store";
When things go wrong
Sometimes when an app misbehaves the best way to fix it is to restart your iPhone or iPad. Some people find this difficult to do using the physical buttons on iPhones.
Say "restart iPhone" or "restart iPad" to Siri and you will be asked to confirm that you want to restart the phone. When you confirm, the phone will be restarted. You will need to enter your passcode after the restart and you may find that a misbehaving app has been fixed.
General questions
Siri is pretty good at answering general questions and will often speak the answer. Sometimes it will be necessary to read the answer or have VoiceOver speak it to you. You will sometimes get the response "OK, I found this on the web for...". Siri's answer will be at the top of the screen. Touch there to have VoiceOver speak the response and, if necessary, double tap to open any links that Siri offers.
Try questions like:
"What is the population of Leicester?";
"What is the diameter of the moon?";
"When did Richard the third die?";
"What is the cornea?".
You can also use Siri to send brief emails to someone who is in your list of contacts. For example, to send an email to John Smith, start by saying:
“Mail John Smith” and Siri will ask for the subject and the message.
"Check my mail.”; will speak summaries of recent unread emails
"Read my email from John Smith" will speak summaries of specific unread emails
Alarms and timers
“Set alarm for 7pm”;
"Set take medication alarm for 3pm" will set the alarm and you will hear "take medication" when it sounds;
"Set daily take medication alarm for 3pm";
"Cancel my take medication alarm" or "Cancel my 3pm alarm"'
"What alarms are set?";
"Set a timer for 1 hour";
"What's left on the timer?".
"Cancel timer";
If Hey Siri is enabled, an alarm or timer can sometimes be dismissed with "Hey Siri, stop". If Hey Siri is not enabled then swipe or slide to find the stop button and double tap.
Reminders
Siri can set up simple or complex recurring reminders, for example:
"Remind me to post Jim's birthday card tomorrow";
and there's much more that Siri can do with reminders.
Making and retrieving notes
Siri can quickly create and find notes in the Notes app.
"Make a note" (Siri will ask you for the note);
"Read my notes about Jim";
"Read my notes from yesterday".
What's happening, screenshots, calculations and translation
“What’s the time?”;
"What's the news?" - this will play a radio news update;
"Take a screenshot";
"How do you say good morning in Mandarin Chinese?";
“What’s 1 foot in metres.”;
“What’s 25 times 1 point 4";
“When is my next appointment?”; There is a separate web page on calendar commands in Siri
Using the camera
"Take a photo";
"Take video";
"Selfie";
These open the camera in the appropriate mode.
Explore Siri for yourself
Once you’ve got the hang of Siri why not see what other questions Siri can answer or tasks it can do.
Also you could check out other things that Siri can do for you.
You may also find the Apple iPhoneUser Guide section on Siri useful .
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last updated 24 December 2025
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