Do you have an iPhone 4s? Are you are thinking about purchasing one? Or are you curious as to what this new technology can achieve? If yes, then this might just be the article for you.
Siri: Your wish is its command.
What is SIRI?
Siri on the iPhone 4S is the latest software development by Apple. It works by translating speech into commands to perform a variety of tasks; essentially it acts like a personal assistant in the palm of your hand.
Siri uses ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) to understand what you want it to do. You can ask Siri to help you with anything ranging from sending text messages or emails, arranging meetings, making phone calls and more.
You communicate with Siri by talking in every day language. Siri is able to understand what you say; it knows what context you mean and is even able to talk back to you. Once you know how to use Siri it is not difficult. After reading this article you should be able to use this feature effectively and with confidence.
For a further look you might like to watch Apple's promotional video: What is Siri?
How do I activate Siri on my iPhone 4s?
When you turn on your iPhone 4S for the first time you have the option to activate Siri there and then. You can set it up at any time by opening Settings, selecting General and then Siri and flipping the switch to "On".
While you're doing this you might also want to go into Settings, select Location Services and turn them "On" so that Siri can identify information in your area.
Now I have Siri activated, how do I use it?
There are three ways to use Siri:
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Press and hold the Home button until you hear a tone and then start talking. The bottom of the screen will show a picture of a microphone inside a circle, and will display the question "What can I help you with?"
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Bring the phone up to your ear, wait to hear the sound of a tone, then talk.
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Siri can also respond when you press a button on a Bluetooth headset. If you're concerned about Siri interrupting when you raise the phone up to your ear to make a call you can disable this feature by going to the Settings menu and selecting turn the Raise to speak feature off.
What can Siri do?
You can ask a wide range of questions or issue voice commands. Listen to this podcast for an audio explanation of how Siri simplifies tasks on the iPhone 4s.
Here are some examples of what you can say:
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Remind me at 4 to go to the dentist
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Send a message to John, tell him I'm running late.
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Is it going to rain in Birmingham today?
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Arrange a meeting with Amy at 1 tomorrow.
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Send an email to my manager, tell her I had to cancel the meeting.
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Siri, play some Red Hot Chili Peppers
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What is my brother's telephone number?
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Set an alarm for 6am tomorrow morning.
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Set a timer for one hour.
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How can you help me, what can you do?
Siri understands and responds in the context of the sentence or the question. For example, when arranging an appointment, or setting a reminder you can change the time from 4pm to 7pm simply by saying something along the lines of "On second thoughts, make that 7".
If you are having trouble with Siri, if you didn't get your words out fast enough or you were misunderstood, you can tap the microphone icon and try to dictate your request again.
If you are still curious you can view an article which contains a comprehensive list of all of the iPhone 4s commands describing exactly What You Can Say To Siri?
Or try this Siri review, What Siri Can and Cannot Do, for a step by step breakdown of Siri's capabilities with examples.
What if SIRI makes a mistake?
Depending on your accent or clarity of speech Siri may make a mistake. There are two ways to keep Siri working with the right information.
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If Siri makes a mistake, take a look at your device. Scroll to the top of the screen and you should see your query transcribed, and any sections Siri doesn't understand will be underlined in blue. Tap on your query to edit it.
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You can also try correcting Siri verbally, it is important to speak clearly and repeat yourself if Siri does not understand. Or, if you're trying to dictate a message or email, try using the following commands:
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"Change it to": Siri will change your message to whatever you follow this with.
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"Add": Siri will add whatever follows to your message.
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"Read it back to me": Siri will read your message out loud, so you know if it's now correct.
You can also correct message recipients on the fly, by saying "No, send it to (name) instead."
Dictation Feature
You may also find it useful to know that there is built in dictation with the iPhone 4s. Just tap on the microphone icon next to your on screen keyboard and speak what you previously would have typed!
VoiceOver
Are you a voice over use and interested in how this accessibility feature can work with Siri? Check out these podcasts using Siri with VoiceOver on the iPhone 4s.
Tips and tricks
Having your phone contacts and other data organized in a strategic way can help Siri to operate effectively.
It may be useful to give some contacts in your iPhone nicknames. For example, asking Siri to send a text message to Mum is an easy request because in my phone she is simply saved as Mum.
You may find it useful to save other friends and family members in the same way. This would enable you to say Siri, send this to text message to my brother, send this text message to my wife, to my Grandad, to my best friend etc.
This can also be useful if you have multiple contacts in your address book with the same name. If I were to ask Siri to send this message to 'Dave' I would like to ensure that this will be sent to the correct Dave so having a distinguishable nick name associated with that person could be very useful.
Is there anything else I should know about?
There are several limitations to using Siri outside the USA.
Navigation features are not programmed into the UK version of Siri meaning you're going to have to plan routes manually. Similarly, you can't use it to find the nearest chemist or pizza restaurant.
This feature is not available because Apple doesn't have a UK business search partner and therefore having an iPhone 4s or not, you still have to use Google for your searches. In the US you're able to carry out any of these tasks with Siri as the USA search partner is Yell.
Apple is rumored to be working on ways to improve this limitation outside of the USA, so let's hope we will be seeing this feature working in the near future.
If you would like to know how to utilize the Google search engine to find local businesses in the same way Siri can, then view this article Siri works in UK just fine… Thanks to Google.
Further information
For general information on Siri visit the official Apple web page for Siri in the UK
Frequently asked questions about Siri
A blind Geek's first impression of Siri
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