Siri is surprisingly useful, and though the voice assistant can do a ton of stuff, it’s really best used when it’s either faster than manually tapping around a screen, or when you’re unable to because your hands are busy from driving or something else. Now that Siri can be enabled on more iOS devices than ever before, you should really start using it, and here are some genuinely useful things you can do with Siri to get started:
1: Check Email, Send Replies, and Compose New Mail
On the go or just feeling lazy on your couch? Just saying “Check Email” will check for new messages and give you a list all of your recent emails. If you feel like responding to one, say “Reply to (Name)”, then provide a response to Siri for the message. You can also compose new emails by just saying “Send email to (name) saying (message)”.
2: Get Sports Info, Find Game Times, and Check Scores
Wondering when kickoff is? Maybe you’re on the road and want to know the score of a game? Siri knows, just ask. For the best results with sports, you’ll want to be fairly specific with team names, since there is some crossover between different sports. It’s best to ask something like “When are the San Francisco Giants playing” rather than “When are the Giants playing”, since you could end up getting results for New Yorks football team rather than the baseball info you actually want. Either way, Siri works great for this.
3: Send Text Messages
Siri will type out text messages for you, which is wonderful if you either don’t like typing on touch screens or you’re driving and can’t send texts anyway. Just say “Send text to (name) saying (message content)” and it will be done, it’s really that easy.
4: Make Phone Calls
Just like it’s often easier to talk out a text message or email while you’re driving or your hands are busy, so is making a phone call. A quick “Call Mom” is all it takes, and you’re on your way. You can also identify relationships to Siri by assigning contacts to relationships, like wife, girlfriend, dad, mom, brother, cousin, etc.
5: Get Local Weather, or Check Weather Anywhere
Whether you want to know the local weather or the weather at a destination, Siri can do it. Asking “What’s the weather” will give you the current locations weather and temperature, and specifying a location will tell you what the forecast is for elsewhere. Much faster than tapping around to launch a weather app!
6: Set Alarms or Take a Nap
Want to take a two hour nap? No problem, just tell Siri to wake you up in two hours, and an alarm will be set for you. Of course, you can set normal alarms through Siri by saying “set an alarm for this time”, but the nap approach is very useful.
7: Get Movie Times
Wondering when a movie is playing nearby? Siri uses your location to find out. Just ask “When are showtimes for (movie name)” and you’ll get a list of all times for that movie playing at all nearby theaters. This is much quicker than launching an app and searching around.
Do you use Siri for anything in particular? Let us know in the comments.
Source: http://osxdaily.com/2012/10/04/7-good-uses-of-siri/
No comments:
Post a Comment