Siri & Spotlight
These two amazing iPhone features can do more than you think
WHEN YOU GIVE Amazon’s digital assistant a command, do you say, “Hey, Alexa” out of habit? When you return to Apple’s service, do you forget the “Hey”? With iPhone 17, you can solve this problem by changing Siri’s wake word from “Hey, Siri” to simply “Siri”. To do this, open Settings and tap Siri & Search. At the top of the screen is an option called “Listen for”. Tap this, and choose your wake words.
You can get Siri to read a Safari web page to you now too. Just open the page (it needs to have Reader View available) and say “Siri, read this to me”. It might not work if a page isn’t very text–heavy. You can also get Siri to read a web page for you by tapping “AA” in the bottom left and choosing Listen to Page.
If Siri makes a mistake while listening to you, it can be corrected, as long as you’re set up to see what you say on the screen. Just tap the incorrect word and type in the correction. When you’re finished, tap Done; Siri then responds to the corrected version of what you said.
Another new feature, introduced in iOS 17 and available on the iPhone 11 or later, is back–to–back conversations. If your iPhone meets the requirements, you can chain commands and questions in a more natural way than asking them one at a time. For example, you might say, “Siri, what’s the time in Tokyo?” and after the reply, add, “And what about Paris?” Siri understands the second question is a follow–on from the first, and answers it accordingly.
If you want to change Siri’s voice or accent, go to Settings > Siri & Search > Siri Voice. To change its language, go to Settings > Siri & Search > Language. Just the thing if you’re learning a foreign language and want to practice.
Other helpful Siri functions include asking for definitions/synonyms of words, converting currencies and measurements, solving math problems, and finding out the weather in locations across the world.