Siri is definitely the coolest part of the iPhone 4S. The app allows you to send emails, check reminders, get weather information and do just about everything else by speaking into your iPhone. It’s fairly good at figuring out what you want, too, but some of Siri’s best features aren’t obvious right out of the box.
Here are a few quick tips to help you get more out of the iPhone 4S’s voice recognition app, Siri.
You Can Use Siri With Some Websites Like Facebook And Twitter. Siri can’t access third party apps, but you can still use it to update your status with some simple hacks.
Add your cell phone number to Facebook, then add Facebook as a contact. You can then send text messages to update your status. You’ll simply have to say “Text Facebook” followed by your status to update.
For Twitter, the process is the same: go to your Settings on Twitter and add your mobile number, then add Twitter to your phone number with the number 4044. You can then use Siri to Tweet at will.
Add Some Punctuation To Text Messages And Emails. When I first started using Siri, all of my text messages ran together, because I assumed that the phone would hear the word “period” and write it out. Not so. Top add punctuation, simply say the name of the symbol or mark that you want to add.
If you actually want to say “period” or “comma” or any other word and have it written out in your message, Siri will probably figure it out–it’s very good at determining parts of speech. For example, saying, “You should have put an exclamation mark at the end of that sentence” will work, because Siri will see from the sentence’s form that you don’t want the actual mark to be in there. Learn to trust the computer and you’ll find it much easier to write and send messages.
Know What Siri Can’t Do. Siri can find information about everything from the length of a grain of rice to the President’s birthday with Wolfram Alpha and it can call your friends, play songs or look up information through other core apps, but there are some necessary privacy limitations that can somewhat limit Siri’s effectiveness.
For instance, Siri can’t open any third-party iPhone apps. It will understand you if you ask it to open your favorite game, but it will apologize and refuse your request, because if Siri was capable of opening pretty much anything, it would be considered a massive security and privacy liability.
You’ll quickly learn what Siri can and can’t do as you use your phone, but understand that the limitations are in place for a reason. As the iPhone 4S becomes more popular, expect to see its functionality expanded to third party apps, but don’t waste your time trying to get the program to work with games, third party text messaging programs and other apps.
Have any cool Siri tips? Post below.