Thursday, October 31, 2013

Do More with Siri Commands in iOS 7

Siri Commands are even better with iOS 7. Bakari Chavanu wrote a great article about the new Siri commands in iOS 7. Siri was first introduced with iOS 5 back in 2010, and since that time many have jumped on the bandwagon to use Siri to dictate messages, place phone calls, search the web, etc. Now Siri has even more commands and the article highlights how to get started and some tips for getting the most out of the feature. Here are just a few of my favorites. Click here to read the entire article. 

First Siri Command
Simply press down on the Home button until you here the two-tone prompt and the new Siri screen comes p. If you don’t know what to say, you can tap on question at bottom-left of the screen to get a list of commands, or if you don’t speak for a few seconds a list of commands will appear on the screen.
The list of Siri commands you see are related to all of the default iOS apps. Tapping on a listed app gets you additional commands and questions you can use. But if you’re just getting your feet wet with Siri you might feel a little overwhelmed with the long list. I will highlight a few of the new and most practical commands you might should know about.

Voice Command Control Center
Turning off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth when you’re traveling away from home or your office can be a significant battery safer. You can manually turn off these and other Settings features using the new Control Center in iOS 7 (swipe up from the bottom of the home screen of your device). Or even better, you can tell Siri to “Turn off Wi-Fi”, or “Make screen brighter/dimmer” without having to swipe at all. Naturally you can also send a command to turn the features back on.
A few Control Center features Siri can’t handle is turn on the flashlight or change the screen orientation. It can though lower or increase the volume on your device.

Siri Settings
Now that you have some ideas about what Siri can do, you might want to open Settings > General > Siri and change the Voice Gender from the default female to male, or change to another language. Also notice where it says My Info. If you want Siri to be of more assistance to you personally, make sure the information about you in your Contacts card is up-to-date, including your all your home address and family relations. See this Siri article for setting up family connections.


Other Commands Available:
☆ Phone Call and Messages (can now ask to play your latest voicemail messages)
☆ Launch Applications (no longer have to search for apps)
☆ Play iTunes Radio Application (can ask to play radio or certain station)
☆ Twitter Searches (search specifics)
☆ Questions and Answers (now provides better answers to mathematical and factual questions)

Click here to read the entire article by Bakari Chavanu.

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