Siri essentials

Introduction

Siri isn’t marketed as an accessibility feature, but it can be very useful for people with sight loss.

Siri allows you to speak commands to, and ask questions of your iPhone or iPad. 

The range of tasks that can be performed using 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 can 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 significant changes to Siri to a future version of iOS. I believe everything here should work with both versions of Siri. I'll update my Siri pages when the versions diverge more significantly.

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 / Siri & Search / automatically send messages;

"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.

When Siri has finished speaking , the text that it spoke will usually be on screen and you can interact with this text. For example, if you have asked Siri to "check my missed calls", you could use the list displayed on screen to return a missed call. If you are using VoiceOver, locate the call by locating the responses and then swiping through them and double tap on the call you want to return. If you aren't using VoiceOver tap on the call. If Siri's response isn't on screen, this can be changed at Settings / Siri & Search / Siri Responses / Siri Captions.

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 / Spoken content. 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

In the spring of 2022 this feature no longer works reliably for anything other than VoiceOver settings.  I have left the section here in the hope that Apple will reinstate this feature.

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".

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, which currently has far better knowledge than Apple Maps of jittys and alleyways for a more efficient journey on foot. (Actually, I think Apple Maps may now have improved and will try to find time to check again in late 2023)

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";

"Find Be My Eyes" 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. iOS 16 introduced the ability for Siri to restart an iPhone.

Say "restart iPhone" 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?".

Email

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 emails

"Read my email from John Smith" will speak summaries of specific 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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