The “Hey” Part of “Hey Siri” Is Now Optional

If you use Siri, particularly on a HomePod, you’re probably accustomed to saying “Hey Siri” as the trigger phrase before your requests. In Apple’s new operating systems for 2023, you can now choose to invoke Siri using the traditional “Hey Siri” or just “Siri” (at least in Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US). [...]

By |2023-12-18T13:52:06-04:00March 5th, 2024|iOS Tips, Mac Tips|Comments Off on The “Hey” Part of “Hey Siri” Is Now Optional

Find Devices and People from Your HomePod

This feature evokes one of those “living in the future” moments for us. The recently released HomePod Software 16.3 now supports Find My, which means you can ask Siri to locate one of your devices or a friend or family member who shares their location with you. If you have a HomePod, ask Siri, [...]

By |2023-03-01T18:25:09-04:00March 21st, 2023|iOS Tips|Comments Off on Find Devices and People from Your HomePod

Siri in Mojave Now Supports HomeKit and Find My iPhone

Siri on the Mac hasn’t been as useful as on iOS devices, but with macOS 10.14 Mojave, Apple enhanced the Mac version of Siri in a variety of ways. Apple says that Siri now knows about food, celebrities, and motorsports, but more interesting is how you can ask Siri to control your HomeKit devices [...]

By |2019-01-07T18:43:56-04:00January 29th, 2019|Mac Tips|Comments Off on Siri in Mojave Now Supports HomeKit and Find My iPhone

Teach Siri How to Pronounce Names Properly

Siri is supposed to be a competent voice assistant, but sometimes Siri can’t even pronounce your own name correctly! Luckily, it’s easy to fix Siri’s pronunciation for any name. Just say to Siri, “Learn how to pronounce Jill Kresock.” (Siri defaults to “krehsock” rather than the correct “kreesock” in this case.) Siri first asks you [...]

By |2018-05-02T18:17:44-04:00May 8th, 2018|iOS Tips|Comments Off on Teach Siri How to Pronounce Names Properly

How to Get Back to Siri’s Web Results Quickly

Ask Siri to search the Web and you’ll get five results back from Google (not Bing anymore!). Tap one and it opens in Safari. But what if that page doesn’t contain the information you want? How do you get back to Siri’s results? The easy way is to tap the little Siri button that appears in [...]

By |2017-11-12T16:17:42-04:00November 14th, 2017|iOS Tips|Comments Off on How to Get Back to Siri’s Web Results Quickly

Can’t Find an App on Your iPhone? Ask Spotlight or Siri!

It’s easy to find the apps you use regularly on your iPhone or iPad, but there’s little more frustrating than needing an app you seldom launch and not being able to find it. You could scroll through all the home screens on your device and hope you recognize the icon, but here’s a faster [...]

By |2017-04-03T17:20:06-04:00April 28th, 2017|iOS Tips|Comments Off on Can’t Find an App on Your iPhone? Ask Spotlight or Siri!

Mark and Navigate to Arbitrary Locations in Maps

Sure, you know how to search for a place or address in Maps, and you probably even know that you can ask Siri to “Take me home.” But sometimes you want to go somewhere that doesn’t have an address, or where the address you can find doesn’t match the precise location you need. For [...]

By |2017-03-07T17:29:18-04:00March 10th, 2017|iOS Tips|Comments Off on Mark and Navigate to Arbitrary Locations in Maps
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