Voice Command

In 2010, Apple bought Siri, a company that made a voice-control app (no longer available) for the iPhone. Apple cleaned it up, beefed it up, integrated it with the iPhone’s software, and wound up with Siri, your virtual servant.

Siri is a crisply accurate, astonishingly understanding, uncomplaining, voice-commanded servant. No special syntax is required; you don’t even have to hold the phone to your head.

Many speech-recognition systems work only if you issue certain limited commands with predictable syntax, like “Call 445-2340” or “Open Microsoft Word.” But Siri is different. She’s been programmed to respond to casual speech, normal speech. It doesn’t matter if you say, “What’s the weather going to be like in Tucson this weekend?” or “Give me the Tucson weather for this weekend” or “Will I need an umbrella in Tucson?” Siri understands almost any variation.

And she understands regular, everyday speaking. You don’t have to separate your words or talk weirdly; you just speak normally.

It’s not Star Trek. You can’t ask Siri to clean your gutters or to teach you French. (Well, you can ask.)

But, as you’ll soon discover, the number of things Siri can do for you is impressive. Furthermore, Apple continues to add to Siri’s intelligence through software updates.

How to Use Siri

To get Siri’s attention, you have three choices:

• Hold down the home button until you see a wavy animation on the screen. (iPhone X: Hold in the side button.) Siri no longer double-beeps or vibrates when you trigger her, except when you trigger her remotely. She gives a double-beep when you use CarPlay, your earbuds clicker, or “Hey Siri” (described next). The phone doesn’t have to be unlocked or awake, which is awesome. Just pull the phone out of your pocket and hold down the home button.

• Hold down the clicker on your earbuds cord or the Call button on your Bluetooth earpiece.

• Say, “Hey Siri.” A double-beep plays. (You have to turn this feature on in advance. And on models before the iPhone 6s, it works only when the phone is plugged into power, like a USB jack. Details in a moment.)

Now Siri is listening. Ask your question or say your command. You don’t have to hold the phone up to your mouth; Siri works perfectly well at arm’s length, on your desk in front of you, or on the car seat beside you.

When you’re finished speaking, be quiet for a moment (or, if you’ve been pressing the home or side button, release it). About a second after you stop speaking, Siri connects with her master brain online and processes your request. After a moment, she presents (and speaks) an attractively formatted response.

To rephrase your question or cancel or start over, tap the screen to interrupt Siri’s work. (You can also cancel by saying “Cancel” or just by pressing the home or side button.) Tap the microphone icon to trigger your new attempt.

And when you’re completely finished talking to Siri, you can either press the home (side) button, hold down your earbuds clicker, or say something like “Goodbye,” “See you later,” or “Adios.” You’re taken back to whatever app you were using before.

How to Use “Hey Siri”

Siri can also accept spoken commands without your touching the phone. It’s ideal for the car, when your hands and eyes should be focused on driving. (Of course, it’s safest not to interact with your phone at all when you’re driving—and Apple has an answer for that, too [“One More Safety Measure”].)

The phone won’t respond to “Hey Siri” unless you’ve set it up like this:

• Turn on “Hey Siri.” Open Settings → Siri & Search and turn on Allow “Hey Siri” (it comes turned off).

• Train Siri to recognize your voice. You have to do a quick training session to teach Siri what you sound like. Otherwise, a lot of people would be freaked out when they say things like “Jay’s weary” or “Space? Eerie!” and the phone double-beeps in response.

  As soon as you turn on Allow “Hey Siri” the training screens appear. Hit Set Up Now. The screen asks you to say “Hey Siri” three times, and then “Hey Siri, how’s the weather today?” and “Hey Siri, it’s me.” That’s all Siri needs to learn your voice.

At that point, you’re good to go. Anytime you want to ask Siri something, just say, “Hey Siri”; at the sound of the double-beep, say your thing.

Just remember that older iPhone models (before the 6s) don’t respond to “Hey Siri” except when they’re plugged in and charging.

Thanks to “Hey Siri,” you now have a front-seat conversationalist, a little software friend who’s always happy to listen to what you have to say—and whose knowledge of the world, news, sports, and history can help make those cross-country drives a little less dull.

What to Say to Siri

Siri comes with a cheat sheet to help you learn her capabilities. To produce it, hold down the home (side) button long enough to make the “Go ahead, I’m listening” screen appear. Then release the button.

Siri displays screen after screen of example command categories, under the heading “Some things you can ask me.” Tap a category name (below, left) to see sample commands within that category (right).

Here are the general categories of things you can say to Siri:

• Opening apps. If you don’t learn to use Siri for anything else, for the love of Mike, learn this one. You can say, “Open Calendar” or “Play Angry Birds” or “Launch Calculator.”

  Result: The corresponding app opens instantly. It’s exactly the same as opening the Home screen, swiping across the screen until you find the app you’re looking for, and then tapping its icon—but without opening the Home screen, swiping across the screen until you find the app you’re looking for, and then tapping its icon.

• Camera. “Take a panorama” (or “selfie” or “photo” or “slo-mo video”). You can even say, “Scan a QR code”—a new feature that saves you from having to download a QR app. (QR codes are those strange, 1-inch-square bar codes that advertisers create as quick links to their websites.)

  Result: The Camera app opens, already set to the mode you requested. If you asked for the QR code, when you aim the lens at the bar code, a notification banner appears, offering a link to the relevant site.

• Change your settings. You can make changes to certain basic settings just by speaking your request. You can say, for example, “Turn on Bluetooth,” “Turn off Wi-Fi,” “Turn on Do Not Disturb,” or “Turn on airplane mode.” (You can’t turn off airplane mode by voice, because Siri doesn’t work without an Internet connection.)

  You can also make screen adjustments: “Make the screen brighter.” “Dim the screen.”

  Result: Siri makes the requested adjustment, tells you so, and displays the corresponding switch in case she misunderstood your intention.

• Open Settings panels. When you need to make tweakier changes to Settings, you can open the most important panels by voice: “Open Wi-Fi settings,” “Open Cellular settings,” “Open Personal Hotspot settings,” “Open Notification settings,” “Open Sounds settings,” “Open wallpaper settings,” and so on.

  You can open your apps’ settings this way, too: “Open Maps settings,” “Open Netflix settings,” “Open Delta settings,” and so on.

  Siri is smart enough not to open security-related settings this way; remember that you can use Siri even from the Lock screen. She’s protecting you from passing pranksters who might really mess up your phone.

  Result: Siri silently opens the corresponding page of Settings.

• Calling. Siri can place phone calls or FaceTime calls for you. “Call Harold.” “Call Nicole on her mobile phone.” “Call the office.” “Phone home.” “Dial 512-444-1212.” “Start a FaceTime call with Sheila Withins.” “FaceTime Alex.”

  Result: Siri hands you off to the Phone app or FaceTime app and places the call. At this point, it’s just as though you’d initiated the call by tapping.

  Siri also responds to questions about your voicemail, like “Do I have any new voicemail messages?” and even “Play my voicemails.” (After playing each message, Siri gracefully offers to let you return the call—or to play the next one.)

• Alarms. You can say, “Wake me up at 7:35.” “Change my 7:35 alarm to 8:00.” “Wake me up in six hours.” “Cancel my 6 a.m. alarm” (or “Delete my…” or “Turn off my…”). And, gloriously: “Turn off all my alarms.”

  This is so much quicker than setting the iPhone’s alarm the usual way.

  Result: When you set or change an alarm, you get a sleek digital alarm clock, right there beneath Siri’s response, and Siri confirms what she understood.

  

• Timer. You can also control the Timer module of the phone’s Clock app. It’s like a stopwatch in reverse, in that it counts down to zero—handy when you’re baking something, limiting your kid’s video-game time, and so on. For example: “Set the timer for 20 minutes.” Or “Show the timer,” “Pause the timer,” “Resume,” “Reset the timer,” or “Stop it.”

  Result: A cool digital timer appears. A little stopwatch icon appears on the Lock screen to remind you that time is ticking down.

• Clock. “What time is it?” “What time is it in San Francisco?” “What’s today’s date?” “What’s the date a week from Friday?” Or just “Time.”

  Result: When you ask about the time, you see the clock identifying the time in question. (For dates, Siri just talks to you and writes out the date.)

• Translations. New in iOS 11: Siri can translate languages! She can translate phrases from English into Chinese, French, German, Italian, or Spanish. For example, you can say, “How do you say, ‘Where’s the bathroom?’ in French?” Or “Say, ‘This is delicious’ in Mandarin.” “Translate ‘My toe hurts’ into German.”

  Result: She displays the translated phrase. Tap ▸ to hear it spoken. She even nails the accents.

  

• Contacts. You can ask Siri to look up information in your address book (the Contacts app)—and not just addresses. For example, you can say, “What’s Gary’s work number?” “Give me Sheila Jenkins’ office phone.” “Show Tia’s home email address.” “What’s my boss’s home address?” “When is my husband’s birthday?” “Show Larry Murgatroid.” “Find everybody named Smith.” “Who is P.J. Frankenberg?”

  Result: A half “page” from your Contacts list. You can tap it to jump into that person’s full card in Contacts. (If Siri finds multiple listings for the person you named—“Bob,” for example—she lists all the matches and asks you to specify who you meant.)

  You can even follow up. If you first asked, “What is Germaine’s home address?” you can then say, “What’s his cellphone number?”

• Text messages. “Send a text to Alex Rybeck.” “Send a message to Peter saying, ‘I no longer require your services.’ ” “Tell Cindy I’m running late.” “Send a message to Janet’s mobile asking her to pick me up at the train.” “Send a text message to 212-561-2282.” “Text Frank and Ralph: Did you pick up the pizza?”

  Result: Siri prompts you for the body of the message, if you haven’t specified it. Then you see a miniature outgoing text message. Siri asks if you want to send it; say, “Yes,” “Send,” or “Confirm” to proceed.

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  If you’re using earbuds, headphones, or a Bluetooth speaker, then Siri reads the message back to you before asking if you want to send it. (You can ask her to read it again by saying something like, “Review that,” “Read it again,” or “Read it back to me.”) The idea, of course, is that if you’re wearing earbuds or using Bluetooth, you might be driving, so you should keep your eyes on the road.

  If you need to edit the message before sending it, you have a couple of options. First, you can tap it; Siri hands you off to the Messages app for editing and sending.

  Second, you can edit it by voice. You can say, “Change it to” to re-dictate the message; “Add” to add more to the message; “No, send it to Frank” to change the recipient; “No” to leave the message on the screen without sending it; or “Cancel” to forget the whole thing.

  You can also ask Siri to read incoming text messages to you, which is great if you’re driving. For example, you can say, “Read my new messages,” and “Read that again.” Or search for past messages: “Read my last message from Robin.”

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  If you’ve opted to conceal the actual contents of incoming texts so that they don’t appear on your Lock screen (“Three Swipes, You’re In”), then Siri can read you only the senders’ names or numbers—not the messages themselves.

  You can even have her reply to messages she’s just read to you. “Reply, ‘Congratulations (period). Can’t wait to see your trophy (exclamation point)!’ ” “Call her.” “Tell him I have a flat tire and I’m going to be late.”

  

• Email. Siri can read your email to you. For example, if you say, “Read my latest email” or “Read my new email,” Siri reads aloud your most recent email message. (She then offers you the chance to dictate a response.)

  Or you can use the summary-listing commands. When you say, “Read my email,” Siri starts walking backward through your inbox, telling you the subject of each, plus who sent it and when.

  After a few listings, Siri says: “Shall I read the rest?” That’s your opportunity to shut down what could be a very long recitation. If you say “Yes,” though, she goes on to read the entire list of subject lines, dates, and senders.

  Result: Siri reads aloud.

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  You can also use commands like “Any new mail from Chris today?” “Show new mail about the world premiere.” “Show yesterday’s email from Jan.” All those commands produce a list of the messages, but Siri doesn’t read them.

  You can also compose a new message by voice. Anytime you use the phrase “about,” that becomes the subject line for your new message. “Email Mom about the reunion.” “Email my boyfriend about the dance on Friday.” “New email to Freddie Gershon.” “Mail Mom about Saturday’s flight.” “Email Frank and Cindy Vosshall and Peter Love about the picnic.” “Email my assistant and say, ‘Thanks for arranging the taxi!’ ” “Email Gertie and Eugene about their work on the surprise party, and say, ‘I really value your friendship.’ ”

  (If you’ve indicated only the subject and addressee, Siri prompts you for the body of the message.)

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  You can’t send mail to canned groups of people using Siri—at least not without MailShot, an iPhone app that exists expressly for the purpose of letting you create email addressee groups.

  You can reply to a message Siri has just described, too. “Reply, ‘Dear Robin (comma), I’m so sorry about your dog (period). I’ll be more careful next time (period).’ ” “Call her mobile number.” “Send him a text message saying, ‘I got your note.’ ”

  Result: A miniature Mail message, showing you Siri’s handiwork before you send it.

• Calendar. Siri can make appointments for you. Considering how many tedious finger taps it usually takes to schedule an appointment in the Calendar app, this is an enormous improvement. “Make an appointment with Patrick for October 17 at 3 p.m.” “Set up a haircut at 9.” “Set up a meeting with Charlize this Friday at noon.” “Meet Danny Cooper at 6.” “New appointment with Steve, next Sunday at 7.” “Schedule a conference call at 5:30 tonight in my office.”

  Result: A slice of that day’s calendar appears, filled in the way you requested.

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  Siri may also alert you to a conflict, something like this: “Note that you already have an all-day appointment about ‘Boston Trip’ for this Thursday. Shall I schedule this anyway?” Amazing.

  You can also move previously scheduled meetings by voice. For example, “Move my 2:00 meeting to 2:30.” “Reschedule my meeting with Charlize to a week from Monday at noon.” “Add Frank to my meeting with Harry.” “Cancel the conference call on Sunday.”

  You can even consult your calendar by voice. You can say, “What’s on my calendar today?” “What’s on my calendar for September 23?” “When’s my next appointment?” “When is my meeting with Charlize?” “Where is my next meeting?”

  Result: Siri reads you your agenda and displays a tidy Day view of the specified date.

  

• Directions. By consulting the phone’s GPS, Siri can set up the Maps app to answer requests like these: “How do I get to the airport?” “Show me 1500 Broadway, New York City.” “Directions to my assistant’s house.” “Take me home.” “What’s my next turn?” “Are we there yet?”

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  You can also say, “Stop navigation”—a great way to make Maps stop harassing you when you realize you know where you are.

  You can ask for directions to the home or work address of anyone in your Contacts list—provided those addresses are in your Contacts list.

  Result: Siri fires up the Maps app, with the start and end points of your driving directions already filled in.

• Reminders. Siri is a natural match for the Reminders app. She can add items to that list at your spoken command. For example: “Remind me to file my IRS tax extension.” “Remind me to bring the science supplies to school.” “Remind me to take my antibiotic tomorrow at 7 a.m.” “Create a list called Packing List.” “Add kissing to my Bucket list.”

  The location-based reminders are especially amazing. They rely on GPS to know where you are. So you can say, “Remind me to visit the drugstore when I leave the office.” “Remind me to water the lawn when I get home.” “Remind me to check in with Nancy when I leave here.”

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  It’s pretty obvious how Siri knows to remind you when you leave “here,” because she knows where you are right now. But she also understands “home” and “office,” both yours and other people’s—if you’ve entered those addresses onto the corresponding people’s cards in Contacts.

  

  Siri can also understand the word “this” when you’re looking at an email message, a web page, or a note. That is, you can say, “Remind me about this at 7 p.m.” or “Remind me about this when I get home.” Sure enough: Siri will flag you with a reminder notification at the appropriate time—and add an entry, with a link to the original message, web page, or note, to the Reminders app.

  Result: A miniature entry from the Reminders app, showing you that Siri has understood.

• Notes. You create a new note (in the Notes app) by saying things like, “Make a note that my shirt size is 15 and a half” or “Note: Dad will not be coming to the reunion after all.” You can even name the note in your request: “Create a ‘Movies to Watch’ note.”

  But you can also call up a certain note to the screen, like this: “Find my Frequent Flier note.” You can even summon a table-of-contents view of all your notes by saying, “Show all my notes.”

  Result: A miniature Notes page appears, showing your newly dictated text (or the existing note that you’ve requested).

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  You can keep dictating into the note you’ve just added. Say, “Add ‘Return books to library’ ” (or just say, “Add,” and she’ll ask you what to add). She’ll keep adding to the same note until you say, “Note that…” or “Start a note” or “Take a note” to begin a fresh note page.

  You can add text to an earlier note: “Add Titanic II: The Voyage Home to my ‘Movies to Watch’ note.” (The first line of any note is also its title—in this case “Movies to Watch.”)

• Restaurants. Siri is happy to serve as your personal concierge. Try “Good Italian restaurants around here,” “Find a good pizza joint in Cleveland,” or “Show me the reviews for Olive Garden in Youngstown.” Siri displays a list of matching restaurants—with ratings, reviews, hours, and so on.

  But she’s ready to do more than just give you information. She can actually book your reservations, thanks to her integration with the OpenTable website. You can say, “Table for two in Belmont tonight,” or “Make a reservation at an inexpensive Mexican restaurant Saturday night at seven.”

  Result: Siri complies by showing you the proposed reservation. Tap one of the offered alternative time slots, if you like, and then off you go. Everything else is tappable here, too—the ratings (tap to read customer reviews), phone number, web address, map, and so on.

• Businesses. Siri is a walking, talking (well, all right, not walking) Yellow Pages. Go ahead, try it: “Find coffee near me.” “Where’s the closest Walmart?” “Find some pizza places in Cincinnati.” “Search for gas stations.” “French restaurants nearby.” “I’m in the mood for Chinese food.” “Find me a hospital.” “I want to buy a book.”

  Result: Siri displays a handsome list of businesses nearby that match your request.

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  She’s a sly dog, that Siri. She’ll help you out even if your requests are, ahem, somewhat off the straight and narrow. If you say, “I think I’m drunk,” she’ll list nearby cab companies. If you indicate that you’re craving relief from your drug addiction, she’ll provide you with a list of rehab centers. If you refer to certain biological urges, she’ll list escort services.

  

• Playing music. Instead of fumbling around in your Music app, save yourself steps and time by speaking the name of the album, song, or band: “Play some Beatles.” “Play ‘I’m a Barbie Girl.’ ” “Play some jazz.” “Play my jogging playlist.” “Play the party mix.” “Shuffle my ‘Dave’s Faves’ playlist.” “Play.” “Pause.” “Resume.” “Skip.”

  If you’ve set up any iTunes Radio stations (Chapter 8), you can call for them by name, too: “Play Dolly Parton Radio.” Or be more generic: Just say, “Play iTunes Radio” and be surprised. Or be more specific: Say, “Play some country music” (substitute your favorite genre).

  Result: Siri plays (or skips, shuffles, or pauses) the music you asked for—without ever leaving whatever app you were using.

• Apple Music. If you subscribe to Apple’s $10-a-month Apple Music service, Siri offers a huge range of even more useful voice controls. For example, you can call for any music in Apple’s 30 million–song catalog by song name, album, or performer: “Play ‘Mr. Blue Sky.’ ” “Show me some Elton John albums.” “Play ‘Yesterday’ next” (or “…after this song”). Or ask to have a singer or album played in random order: “Shuffle Taylor Swift.”

  When you hear a song you like, you can say, “Play more like this.” Or, “Add this song (or album) to my library.” (Or, if you don’t like it, “Skip this song.”)

  If more than one person performed a song, be specific: “Play ‘Smooth Criminal’ by Glee.” You can even ask for a song according to the movie it was in. “Play that song from Frozen.”

  Or start one of your playlists by name (“Play ‘Mellow Yoga’ ”). Or re-listen to a song: “Play previous.” Or ask for one of Apple Music’s radio stations: “Play Beats 1” or “Play Charting Now.”

  While music is playing, Siri is happy to tell you what you’re listening to. (“What song is this?” “Who’s the singer?” “What album is this from?”) You can also tell her, “Like this song” or “Rate this song five stars.” She’ll note that and offer you more songs like it on the For You screen of the Apple Music app.

  You can ask her to play the top hits of any year or decade (“Play the top song from 1990”; “Play the top 35 songs of the 1960s”).

  Even if you’re not an Apple Music subscriber, you’re still welcome to say, “Buy ‘Mr. Blue Sky’ ” or “Download the new Taylor Swift album.” Apple welcomes your expenditures in any form.

  Result: Just what you’d expect!

• Identifying music. Siri can listen to the music playing in the room and try to identify it (song name, singer, album, and so on). Whenever there’s music playing, you can say things like, “What’s that song?” “What’s playing right now?” “What song is this?” or “Name that tune!”

  Result: Siri listens to the music playing at your home/office/bar/restaurant/picnic—and identifies the song by name and performer. There is also, needless to say, a Buy button.

• Weather. “What’s the weather going to be today?” “What’s the forecast for tomorrow?” “Show me the weather this week.” “Will it snow in Dallas this weekend?” “Check the forecast for Memphis on Friday.” “What’s the forecast for tonight?” “Can you give me the wind speed in Kansas City?” “Tell me the windchill in Chicago.” “What’s the humidity right now?” “Is it nighttime in Cairo?” “How’s the weather in Paris?” “What’s the high for Washington on Friday?” “When will Jupiter rise tomorrow?” “When’s the moonrise?” “How cold will it be in Houston tomorrow?” “What’s the temperature outside?” “Is it windy out there?” “When does the sun rise in London?” “When will the sun set today?” “Should I wear a jacket?”

  

  Result: A convenient miniature Weather display for the date and place you specified.

• Stocks. “What’s Google’s stock price?” “What did Ford close at today?” “How’s the Dow doing?” “What’s Microsoft’s P/E ratio?” “What’s Amazon’s average volume?” “How are the markets doing?”

  Result: A tidy little stock graph, bearing a wealth of up-to-date statistics.

• Find My Friends. You see this category only if you’ve installed Apple’s Find My Friends app. “Where’s Ferd?” “Is my dad home?” “Where are my friends?” “Who’s here?” “Who is nearby?” “Is Mom at work?”

  Result: Siri shows you a beautiful little map with the requested person’s location clearly indicated by a blue pushpin. (She does, that is, if you’ve set up Find My Friends, you’ve logged in, and your friends have made their locations available.)

• Search the web. “Search the web for a 2016 Ford Mustang.” “Search for healthy smoothie recipes.” “Search Wikipedia for the Thunderbirds.” “Search for news about the Netflix-Amazon merger.”

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  Siri uses Google to perform its web searches. If you prefer Microsoft’s Bing search service, just say so. Say, “Bing Benjamin Franklin.” (For that matter, you can also ask Siri to “Yahoo” something—for example, “Yahoo blueberry dessert recipes.”)

  Wikipedia is a search type all its own. “Search Wikipedia for Harold Edgerton.” “Look up Mariah Carey on Wikipedia.” Pictures get special treatment, too: “I want to see pictures of cows.” You can also say, “Show me pictures of…” or “Find me…” or “Search for…”

  Result: Siri displays the results of your search right on her screen. Tap one of the results to open the corresponding web page in Safari.

• Sports scores. At last you have a buddy who’s just as obsessed with sports trivia as you are. Siri knows everything about everything when it comes to professional and college sports scores, schedules, standings, player details, and team stats.

  You can say things like, “How did the Indians do last night?” “What was the score of the last Yankees game?” “When’s the next Cowboys game?” “What baseball games are on today?”

  

  You can also ask questions about individual players, like “Who has the best batting average?” “Who has scored the most runs against the Red Sox?” “Who has scored the most goals in British soccer?” “Which quarterback had the most sacks last year?”

  And, of course, team stats are fair game, like “Show me the roster for the Giants,” “Who is pitching for Tampa this season?” and “Is anyone on the Marlins injured right now?”

  Result: Neat little box scores or factoids, complete with team logos.

• Movies in theaters. Siri is also the virtual equivalent of an insufferable film buff. She knows everything. “Who was the star of Groundhog Day?” “Who directed Chinatown?” “What is Waterworld rated?” “What movie won Best Picture in 1952?” “How are the reviews for The Emoji Movie?”

  It’s not just about old movies, either. Siri also knows everything about current showtimes in theaters. “What movies are opening this week?” “What’s playing at the Watton Cineplex?” “Give me the reviews for Doctor Strange.” “What are today’s showtimes for The Last Jedi?”

  Result: Tidy tables of movies, theaters, or showtimes. (Tap one for details.) Sometimes you get a movie poster filled with facts. In the U.S., you can even buy tickets by voice: “Two tickets to see Titanic 2,” for example, or “Four tickets to Pelicans at City Center at 7:30 pm.”

• Movies on iTunes. Siri also helps you find flicks in online services (Netflix, Hulu, HBO Go, and so on) or on Apple’s own movie store. You know: “Find movies about football.” “Play Jurassic World.” “Find new action movies on Netflix.” “Get me documentaries on Hulu.” “Find free movies for kids.”

  Result: Thumbnails of the movies you seek.

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  Once you’re playing a video, you can then ask Siri things like, “Who’s in this?” or “Who directed this?” Kind of handy. And if you’re binge watching, you can manage your Up Next queue verbally, too: “What’s next on my Up Next?” “Add Arrested Development to my Up Next.” “Remove Big Little Lies from my Up Next.”

• iBooks. Apple runs an ebook store, too, of course. Therefore, these commands are fair game: “Find books by Ian Fleming.” “Buy the book Purity.” “Show me Jonathan Franzen books.”

  Result: The iBooks app opens, listing the book(s) you mentioned.

• Podcasts. While we’re on the subject of entertainment: Apple’s Podcasts app is Siri-controllable, too. “Play ‘S-Town.’ ” “Play it twice as fast.” “Skip ahead 30 seconds.” “Pause.” “Play.” “Listen to the TED Radio Hour.”

  Result: The app obeys.

• Facts and figures. This is a huge category. It represents Siri’s partnership with the Wolfram Alpha factual search engine (www.wolfram­alpha.com). The possibilities here could fill an entire chapter—or an entire encyclopedia.

  

  You can say things like, “How many days until Valentine’s Day?” “When was Abraham Lincoln born?” “How many teaspoons are in a gallon?” “What’s the exchange rate between dollars and euros?” “What’s the capital of Belgium?” “What’s a 17 percent tip on 62 dollars for three people?” “When is the next solar eclipse?” “Show me the Big Dipper.” “What’s the tallest mountain in the world?” “What’s the price of gold?” “What’s the definition of schadenfreude?” “How much is six dollars in pesos?” “Generate a random number.” “Graph x equals 3y plus 12.” “What flights are overhead?”

  Result: For simple math and conversions, Siri just shows you the answer. For more complex questions, you get a specially formatted table, ripped right out of Wolfram Alpha’s knowledge base.

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  Siri can also harness the entire wisdom of Wikipedia. You can say, for example, “Search Wikipedia for Tim Kaine” or “Tell me about Alexander Hamilton” or “Show me the Wikipedia page about Richard Branson.”

• Search Twitter. If you say something like, “What are people saying?” or “What’s happening on Twitter?” you see a list of tweets on the trending topics on Twitter. (Tap a tweet in the list to open it into a new window that contains more information and a View in Twitter button.)

  Or ask, “What are people saying about the Chicago Bears?” to read tweets on that subject. Or, conversely, you can ask, “What is Samantha Bee saying on Twitter?” to see her most recent tweets. (You can substitute the names of other people or companies.) Or, “Search Twitter for the hashtag ‘FirstWorldProblems.’ ” (A hashtag is a searchable phrase like #toofunny or #iPhoneX, which makes finding relevant tweets on Twitter much easier.)

  Result: Siri displays 10 or so tweets that match your query.

• Round up photos or videos. This trick can save you a lot of time and fussing. You can ask Siri to show you all photos or videos according to the time or place you shot them, or according to the album name they’re in. “Show me the videos from Halloween last year,” you can say. “Get me the videos from Utah.” “Show me the Disney World album.” “Open the Panoramas album.” “Show me the Slo-mo videos from Oberlin College.” “Give me the pictures from last summer.”

  Result: You get a screenful of little square thumbnails of photos or videos that match your request. Tap one to open it, or tap Show All to see all the photos/videos in that batch.

Typing to Siri

In iOS 11, for the first time, you can type your questionsa and commands to Siri instead of speaking them. Every now and then, that silent method could be preferable to the talk-aloud method—when you’re in church or a movie, for example, or when your query is of a delicate nature.

To set this up, open Settings → General → Accessibility → Siri. Turn on Type to Siri.

From now on, when you hold down the home (or side) button, you get a Type to Siri box and a keyboard. Tap out your query and then hit Done; Siri shows her response, exactly as though you had spoken.

Even with this feature turned on, your voice isn’t completely useless. “Hey Siri” still works just as it always has, thus giving you the best of both worlds.

And even if you press the home (side) button and find yourself staring at the keyboard, you can still speak your request—by tapping the and dictating. It’s the best of all three worlds.

Advanced Siri

With a little setup, you can extend Siri’s powers in some intriguing ways.