The most useful Siri feature on iPhone and iPad. Understanding Siri commands and teaching her new ones

I thought about what to call this instruction, but I couldn’t come up with anything better than what you see in the title. Yes, indeed, the iPad has a text-to-speech converter. It allows you to read books in iBooks, notes, pages in Safari, etc. This is very useful functionality for the visually impaired. Yes and to an ordinary person It can be useful.

How to turn it on?

Settings->General-> Universal access . In chapter Vision we go to the point Speech .

Here you need to turn the switch Pronunciation to mode ON.

Next you can download Improved quality. In addition to this, other languages ​​also have accents and dialects. And in English you can upload Alex's voice (high-quality English, as close as possible to natural speech).

How to use?

If you turned on “Screen out loud” as I advised, then swipe with two fingers from the top of the screen where there is text. Below with two arrows I show the approximate direction of the fingers.

The following menu will appear on the screen and the text, if possible, will be read out loud:

This panel can be placed anywhere on the screen simple drag and drop. Explanation of panel symbols in order:

1. Left arrow - collapse the panel so as not to cover the screen.

2. Turtle - slow down the speed of speech.

3. Back button - turns pages back, if possible (for example, iBooks) or starts the text again.

4. Pause button - temporarily pauses speech.

5. Forward button - scrolls pages forward (for example, iBooks) or jumps to the next paragraph (for example, in Safari).

6. Rabbit - speed up speech.

7. Close the panel. Stop reading aloud.

1. The Russian speech converter reads texts not perfectly, but tolerably. He often makes mistakes with accents, but this can be forgiven for a machine. Third Party Applications from App Store(for example, Kybook) use exactly this built-in speech synthesizer - so don’t expect miracles from other programs.

2. In Safari, the converter reads everything. To read only the text of the article and not have to worry about highlighting, I recommend using the Reader function.

Only after the text of the article opens in a convenient form, you can call up the speech converter by swiping.

The tips below are not huge secrets, but talking about the features and Siri capabilities, they are traditionally forgotten. As a result, we prepared small selection tips on how you can get more from your voice assistant and a few fun facts.

1. It often happens that the user starts speaking, but cannot finish the phrase due to uncertainty about how to say the word/phrase in foreign language: Not everyone speaks English, German or Chinese at a thorough level. Siri works in such a way that every more or less long pause will be perceived as a completed question. Accordingly, the phrase heard incorrectly, the answer is even stupider, everything needs to start from the very beginning. In order to eradicate this problem in the future, you need to click on Home button and don't let go until the phrase is finished. This will prevent Siri from turning off.
2. If you're not entirely sure what Siri can do, there are three options to choose from. The first is to simply ask a question: if he can/knows, he will simply answer. Second, directly ask “What can I ask Siri” or the same question on any other accessible language. The last option is to click on the question mark in the corner of the screen. A list of possible topics will open for the assistant to answer.
3. Siri can open apps. Both relatives and their own third party developers. The main thing is to pronounce the name of the applications correctly and everything will be open. If identical names a lot (for example, Plants vs Zombie), Siri will give you options and there you can either tap on the screen with your finger, or specify what exactly needs to be opened. True, the voice assistant cannot go further than this - besides launching, no other functions will be performed.
4. As it turns out, Siri remembers quite a lot of its conversations with the user. It seems to many that the conversation history is lost every time we close the corresponding interface. In fact, there is a story. To open it, you need to launch Siri and say nothing, after which the voice assistant will show you what you can ask him. Let's skip this moment and start twisting upward - that's our story.
5. Siri can be taught who is who for you. For example, you can say "Call my girlfriend" and if Siri doesn't know who it is, you can immediately point to specific contact. In exactly the same way you can designate parents, family, colleagues, boss, relatives. It is much more convenient to call than to search in a list of hundreds of contacts.
6. If the iPhone has been away from the user for some time, you can quickly get information about who called/wrote/sent messages to voicemail. You can ask Siri about this and she will quickly tell you everything.
7. Posts on social networks can also be made easily and quickly, but only if you publish them in a foreign language, and not your native one. Just say “Post on Facebook/Twitter” and speak the text. First, all login data from social networks must be entered into the smartphone settings.
8. Siri can also send messages/emails, you just need to dictate the text and specify the sender. And vice versa. Having received email, the user can ask to read its contents out loud and even respond to it. And all this without typing on the keyboard. If you want to have a good laugh, send a letter in Russian and let Siri read it: you've definitely never heard such a broken language.
9. To Work with Siri apps does not know how, but he is well versed in the settings. For example, using your voice, you can open the desired section in the “Settings” menu or directly ask to turn on Bluetooth/Wi-Fi, etc.
10. Siri will never say inappropriate words out loud. And she can’t get this out of her. This mainly concerns the word “Fuck”, which she will write but will not say. Instead, a high-pitched squeak will be heard. Sounds very funny.

About a year ago in voice Siri assistant support for the Russian language appeared, which opened up the opportunity for us to control our smartphone in the car, when cooking and in other cases when our hands are busy. In this article we will look at what commands Siri supports, we will analyze several interesting options use it and try to teach it new commands.

Introduction

Today, almost all OS developers create and develop programs - voice assistants, which are designed to make it easier for the user to operate a smartphone or tablet in the most different situations. As for iOS, this platform has all three main utilities for voice control: Google Now, Apple Siri,Microsoft Cortana. And if the first and third programs are applications from third-party developers, severely limited in their capabilities due to the lack of integration with firmware, then the creation of the Cupertino company is a full-featured solution for iPhone and iPad in this area.

Starting with iPhone 4s and iPad 3, Siri is present on all apple devices, that is, in 2016, all current devices except iPad 2 support it. Perhaps many people do not use this tool very often, and therefore in this article we will talk about its features and how to most productively and quickly receive information using Siri.

Understanding the settings

Siri doesn't have many settings. All of them are concentrated in the “Siri” subsection of the “General” section of the native “Settings” program. In particular, you can choose:

• the ability to activate the utility using the phrase “Hey Siri”. The setting only works when connected to a charger (except for iPhone 6s and 6s Plus). But if you are already conducting a dialogue with the assistant, he will react to this phrase;
• language. The recommended installation options are English (USA) or Russian. The first one is the most developed, the second one will be easier to use;
• Siri voice. For each language there are two settings: male or female, accent during pronunciation. For example, for English there are British, American and Australian variants;
• audio review. This setting very important. If you set it to “Always”, Siri will accompany almost every action with a replica. Accordingly, the “Never” option will completely disable voice prompts. There's also a third option that lets you control how the sound turns on using standard system-wide controls using the volume buttons or a slider in the control center.

Popular use cases

Siri has hundreds, if not thousands of use cases, but only a few are truly effective. Here are some use cases voice assistant when it will be much more useful than a traditional GUI.

Let's start with something simple - launching applications and functions. Let's say you go outside on a bright sunny day and can't see anything on the screen of your device. Then you can safely hold down the “Home” button and say the command “Increase screen brightness to maximum.” Now the device’s display will quickly become readable and performing the necessary actions on the iPhone will not be difficult. In the same way, you can disable or enable Bluetouth, Wi-Fi, and Do Not Disturb mode.

If you have many programs installed on your device, you can also open the one you need using your voice. In this case, absolutely any program installed on the device can be opened. Couldn't name it correctly the first time English name programs? The request can be corrected by correcting the inaccuracy in the command. Do you press a button to do this? in the lower right corner and tap the command that is displayed at the top.

You can open not only applications, but also their individual menus, for example, settings for a specific utility or any tab in native application"Watch". But the folders or menus in third party programs it won't open.

Do you want to write a new message, letter or post to in social networks? Siri can help with this too. Say "Compose new message" and then select the contact you want to send the message to. It is important that an email address is attached to the entry. Enter the subject and content of the letter by voice, and then confirm its sending. It also creates notes, reminders, tweets and Facebook posts.

Help Siri find and background information. For example, you can find out the weather for tomorrow, find out how much two plus two is, or find an article on Wikipedia for the required query. Another possibility is reading the text. You can read the last note or letter you wrote.

Siri's capabilities also include recognition of music being played. Just ask "What music is playing?" and after a few seconds of listening and analysis, Siri will find it in its database. The probability of errors is quite high, but popular songs can be found without problems.

You probably won't want to create passwords using Siri, but this option is available here. Thanks to integration with the Wolfram|Alpha service, you can simply enter the command “Wolfram, password” and get several possible options together with detailed information. Unfortunately, there is no integration with the Russian version of Siri.

You can also find out which aircraft are in this moment flying over a certain city. Just say "What airplanes are flying above me?" or a similar phrase and you will receive information about the name of the flight, the aircraft's flight altitude and the angle relative to the ground.

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Thanks to audiobooks, reading literature has become much more convenient and easier. Actually, not so much reading as listening e-books. Devices Apple standard means allow you to transform any text information on the screen in audio format, resulting in a simple “swipe” to display the text of an article, book, email You can listen to it on the way to work, in the car, subway or plane.

iOS has a number of special functions who help people with disabilities. Thanks to this, Apple gadgets become powerful and affordable auxiliary tools. One of the options is for reading texts. For example, you became interested in some work or opened a website page in your browser, but at the moment you are not able to read. You can always use Siri's speaking feature and continue “reading” in audio format.

To use the voice-over feature, just go to iOS settings and turn on the “Speaking” function. Go to the Settings menu -> General -> Universal Access -> Speech and move the “Speaking” and “Screen out loud” toggle switches to the “On” position. Adjust the speaking speed to your liking by dragging the slider in one direction or the other.

Now go back to your desktop and open any application such as iBooks, Mail or Safari. If it's a browser, open any article with text. Next, turn on the mode Safari reading as shown in the picture, so that the browser leaves only text on the page (otherwise Siri will read all menu items, signatures, etc.).

Swipe down with two fingers from the top edge of the screen:

Siri's speaking mode can be used not only in the browser, but also in many other applications. For example, if you open a large letter in Mail and call the function, the assistant will read out the contents of your correspondence for you. Another useful application of recitation is e-readers and content aggregations.