One of the features that Apple fans love about the new iPhone 4S is Siri. Siri is the voice-activated personal assistant that comes with the new iPhone 4S. Siri uses the technology of artificial intelligence to take voice commands and then simulates the commands to find the best possible way to execute it. With Siri, you will be able to set calendar appointment, send email or text message, search the Internet, use location-based services and more all with just a simple voice command.
Siri does extend the functionality of your phone and it helps to make iPhone users’ life very convenient. But to be able to maximize the full feature and increase your productivity using Siri has to offer, here are some tips.
- Make Siri as your Personal Assistant. Most iPhone 4S users only use Siri every time they need to ask Siri a question. But they can completely eliminate typing every time they use their phone by just dictating to Siri and Siri will type it for them. Tapping the microphone button on the virtual keyboard will instantly activate Siri to take notes as you dictate.
- Teach Siri. Some say that it is frustrating to use Siri, as Siri does not get the dictation right most of the time. The best solution to this is correct Siri every time it commits mistakes. Words that Siri does not understand is underlined in blue and you can correct it by clicking on the words and choose among the alternatives or type and dictate the word again. This will help Siri to learn and overtime will be able to master your dictation.
- Help Siri with punctuations and grammatical constructs. Siri does not automatically insert punctuation marks in a sentence or create new paragraphs and will write the sentence or paragraph as it is dictated. But you can correct this by adding the punctuation marks to the dictation as Siri can recognize and execute commands for inserting commas, period, inserting new paragraphs and the like.
- Assist Siri with phonetic name pronunciation and recognition. Siri finds it hard to understand phonetic words like first names and last names of people. To make things easy for Siri, you can add a phonetic first name or last name to your contacts that Siri can easily understand. To do this, just open up a name in your Contacts list, click Edit and under Add field, you can add a phonetic first name or phonetic last name that will make Siri understand you better when dictating names of people.
- Use Siri for sending updates to Social Networking sites. You can dictate messages to Siri and it will send it as a status update in Facebook or a tweet in Twitter. To do this, one must register to the mobile service of Facebook and Twitter by sending an SMS code (depends on the country of the user) to both sites. For Facebook, a link will be sent and the user has to verify the link using his phone’s browser. For Twitter, a text message will be sent asking for the username and password. Once the link has been confirmed or the account details has been sent, save the Facebook and Twitter code in your contacts list and use this number to send a text and Siri will upload it as a status update in Facebook or tweet in Twitter.
- Use Siri to schedule and remind you of events. You can use Siri as your personal secretary as you can dictate appointments and Siri will add it to your calendar. Siri will even check if there are conflicts to your schedule and will let you decide how to address the conflicts.
Siri is really a very cool addition to the many features of Apple’s iPhone and with the tips mentioned above, you can use it to do a lot more.