Siri Tips

Siri: The ultimate guide

By Rene Ritchie, Monday, Jul 23, 2012 a 1:16 pm

Siri is the name of Apple's virtual assistant with a personality straight out of Pixar. You ask Siri questions or ask Siri do to thing for you using your voice, just like you would ask a real assistant, and Siri will get to working helping you stay in touch, on time, and informed. There's even a related service called Dictation that lets you enter text almost everywhere with just your voice. Siri and Dictation are online services, so you need to be connected to the internet to use it.

Siri is still in beta, and is limited in the number of devices languages and locations it supports. Also, Siri is currently limited to the iPhone 4S, though Dictation also works on the new iPad and soon, the Mac with OS X Mountain Lion. Apple has announced, however, that Siri will be coming to the new iPad, along with several more languages, locations, and features with iOS 6.

We'll expand this guide to include all of that, and more, when it becomes available this fall. But here's what you can do right now:

How to search the web, get answers, and find restaurants using Siri

By Allyson Kazmucha, Friday, Jul 20, 2012 a 7:15 pm

Siri makes for a great personal assistant during the work day for performing tasks like solving mathematical equations and can also be used for entertainment purposes during down time by helping you find things on the Internet. Instead of manually entering Safari or another alternate browser, ask Siri to search the web. If you need the do some math quickly, forget your calculator app and just have Siri use Wolfram Alpha to figure it out for you.

How to check stock and exchange positions using Siri

By Allyson Kazmucha, Friday, Jul 20, 2012 a 12:15 pm

As your personal assistant, Siri can perform loads of tasks for you without the help of any third party apps. If you have the need to check stocks and what different exchanges are trading at , she can help you do so and give you lots of up to the minute information about all your investments. Follow along and we'll show you how.

How to check the weather and view forecasts using Siri

By Allyson Kazmucha, Friday, Jul 13, 2012 a 4:15 pm

Siri not only makes for a great digital assistant but a great weather forecaster as well. With a little help from Siri, you can make sure you're never caught without your umbrella, raincoat, or snow shovel again.

How to play and control music using Siri

By Allyson Kazmucha, Tuesday, Jul 10, 2012 a 12:16 pm

Siri can help you access your music more easily than ever. With Siri you can play tracks, albums, and entires genres without ever having to open your Music app. If you're in the car, Siri also makes for a safe way to keep your tunes going while keeping your hands on the wheel.

How to find locations and get directions using Siri

By Allyson Kazmucha, Sunday, Jul 1, 2012 a 9:32 am

Siri isn't only your digital assistant, it can be your digital co-pilot as well, helping you find where to go, how to get there, and what else you can do along the way.

Right now, Siri location services are only available in the U.S., but come iOS 6 this fall, Apple will be expanding it to many more countries, and integrating Siri with new features, like iOS 6 Maps' turn-by-turn navigation.

In the meantime, here's what you can do with Siri and Maps right now.

How to create, view, update, and cancel calendar events using Siri

By Allyson Kazmucha, Thursday, Jun 28, 2012 a 1:27 am

Since Siri is meant to be your personal assistant, it only makes sense to have her schedule and manage your meetings and events. Asking Siri to create an event only takes a few seconds and is much faster than hand entering them. Whether you need her to schedule a meeting, tell you what's on the agenda for today, or move an existing meeting to another time or date, she'll help keep you on task.

How to set reminders and update task and to-do lists using Siri

By Allyson Kazmucha, Friday, Jun 22, 2012 a 5:35 pm

Siri was designed to help you get things done, and part of that job description is creating and updating your to-dos and lists of to-dos in the Reminders app. If you need to be prodded to pick up milk on the way home, order that present in time for the big party, or set up that lunch meeting before the end of the day, Siri's there to help.

How to set alarms and timers using Siri

By Rene Ritchie, Sunday, May 27, 2012 a 11:30 pm

Siri ties right into the iOS Clock app on your iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, iPad 4, iPad mini, and iPod touch 5, which means if you want to be woken up at 7am, have a timer set for 10 minutes so the cookies don't burn, or find out what the hour is in Australia before you call, Siri can keep you alerted and on time.

How to use Siri faster by talking less

By Georgia, Friday, May 25, 2012 a 2:52 am

If you watched the new iPhone 4S commercials that Apple released last night, the ones that feature John Malkovich asking Siri for jokes and about the meaning of life, you might have noticed the way in which he was asking. In short, it was short. David Chartier certainly noticed:

Joke features him speaking a series of one-word commands to Siri that practically feel like verbal equivalents of tapping on a particular app to get a particular piece of information. "Weather." "Evening." "Linguica." "Joke." Apple seems to want to remind us that, underneath the clever responses and artificial personality, Siri is a tool meant to help us get more done with less.