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Siri: simple tricks to boost its usefulness

Speaking to Siri can be an exercise in frustration – often the iPhone’s personal assistant will misunderstand what you say. However, there are a few more basic commands that always come in handy, and show you just how powerful Siri really is.

Set a timer

If you’re cooking, keeping track of the time remaining is invaluable. Thankfully Siri allows you to set a timer. Simply say, ‘Set a timer for 15 minutes’ and it will start to countdown from that time. If you set the timer for only a three minute interval, Siri will also pipe up about the egg you may be boiling.

Thanks for the cooking tip Siri

Thanks for the cooking tip Siri

Alarms

If you use your iPhone as an alarm clock this next feature will be handy. Say, ‘set an alarm for 6:30 in the morning’ and Siri will set that alarm. Note: if you do not specify morning or evening then you may end up with the wrong one.

Secondly you can also check what alarms are currently in place. Just say to Siri, ‘what are my alarms?’ to reveal your full list. You can now enable or disable any of the alarms from this list.

We'll just turn off the earliest alarm for an extra 10 minutes in bed

We’ll just turn off the earliest alarm for an extra 10 minutes in bed

Weather alerts

Now that your Siri-created alarm has woken you up in the morning you may wish to know what the weather holds. Thankfully Siri can also help you out here. Ask something along the lines of ‘what’s the weather like today?’ to get a response. Add in a location to your question to get the forecast for a particular area.

Get the forecast for the whole week inside Siri

Get the forecast for the whole week inside Siri

Dinner then a film

Planning an evening out can be made easier with Siri’s ability to find restaurants. If you’re looking for somewhere to eat then ask Siri ‘show me some Italian restaurants’ or ‘where’s the closest burger restaurant’ to see a list of results. If you know the name of the restaurant then insert this along with a location.

Tap on the result to find more details such as opening times, phone number, and location. If available you can also make a reservation through OpenTable.

Which Italian shall we go to?

Which Italian shall we go to?

Once you’re finished with dinner you might want to go see a film, so ask Siri about that too. Ask ‘what movies are playing near me?’ to see a table of results. Tap on any of the films to see where they are playing and at what time.

Well, which of the films shall we go see?

Well, which of the films shall we go see?

Simple settings

Having to unlock your device to turn something on or off can take some time. Again Siri comes to the rescue by letting you enable or disable certain settings. You can use Siri to turn on Airplane Mode, handy for when you’re at the theater and don’t want any notifications or calls, check current Bluetooth status, and more.

There's plenty of settings you can change with Siri

There’s plenty of settings you can change with Siri

As always, when using Siri you can also tap the ‘?’ icon and find more common options under Settings.