An Extensive List of Things You Can Say to Siri

[MacRumors]

TUAW publishes an extensive list of phrases that the new Siri personal assistant functionality for the iPhone 4S is capable of understanding. The list, broken down into categories, outlines the various types of information and tasks Siri can deal with and provides some interesting insight into how users can help Siri learn to understand their requests.

For example, several demonstrations of Siri have included users referring to other people by their relationships (wife, dad, etc.) rather than by name. Informing Siri of those relationships is as easy as telling the system what they are, and Siri will remember those associations from that point on. Example voice input using relationships includes:

- My mom is Susan Park
- Michael Manning is my brother
- Call my brother at work

Another interesting and flexible use of Siri is in the creation of notes, a feature that allows users to make records of a wide range of content on their devices.

Creating and finding notes

- Note that I spent $12 on lunch
- Note: check out that new Alicia Keys album
- Find my restaurant note
- Create a reading list note
- Add Tom Sawyer to my reading list note

And while the example phrases show how users can make requests of and provide information to Siri, the examples are just that - examples. As demonstrated yesterday, Siri is capable of understanding natural language, allowing users to ask essentially the same question in a number of ways without needing to employ specific syntax.

Siri's example input phrases are broken down into the following categories:

- Address Book: Querying Contacts, Finding Contacts, Relationships
- Calendars: Adding Events, Changing Events, Asking About Events
- Alarms: Setting Alarms, Checking the Clock, Using a Timer
- Email: Sending Messages, Checking Messages, Responding to Messages
- Friends: Checking Up on Friends
- Maps: Directions, Local Businesses
- Messages: Sending Texts, Reading Texts, Replying to Texts
- Music: Playback
- Notes: Creating and Finding Notes
- Phone: Phone Calls
- Reminders: Requesting Reminders
- Stocks: Checking Stocks

The full list of example phrases is included at TUAW, but Siri's capabilities extend even beyond the items included on the list, as evidenced by demonstrations of Siri searching the Internet, Wikipedia, and Wolfram Alpha for specific information.

Article Link: An Extensive List of Things You Can Say to Siri

 

[euphlyusUNO]

I'm curious if Siri will able to do multiple things using one command, example, "Set four alarms starting 06:00 AM at an interval of 20 minutes". If it can, that's a huge thing. It'll be very useful for me, because I have a tendency to set multiple alarms at an interval to avoid oversleeping .

Super excited about Siri!!!

 

[lilj4425]

Can I ask Siri out on a date? Will it make me a sandwich? Get me a beer out of the fridge? Wash my car?

 

[monaarts]

I don't understand how some people can say that this is stupid and that they won't use it after day 1... I can not wait to just speak a text message instead of typing it, or reply to this forum by talking instead of typing... It will be so nice to tell my phone to set an alarm clock instead of opening it up and doing it. I also put my work schedule in my phone, it normally takes 3-4 minutes for each week. This will now take 1 minute!

- Joe

 

[OrangeSVTguy]

"insert perverted request here"

 

[levitynyc]

I'd ask it,

"When is the iPhone 5 coming out?"

 

[BornAgainMac]

Will this be extended to third party app support or will this only work with Apple apps?

 

[GorgonPhone]

i will trade Suri for a larger screen..

 

[djgamble]

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What's it like with non-American accents? Most voice recognition programs are RUBBISH because I wouldn't say "my mom is..." I'd say "my mum is..." (in my native accent) so it wouldn't work.

If it's like anything else Apple, they haven't tested it outside the USA.

 

[SoldOutMatinee]

this is gonna be amahzing

 

[ECUpirate44]

Can't wait for Siri to come to jailbroken iPhone 4's!

 

[vartanarsen]

Good for txting.....everyhing else is jst a tap instead..ie. How ard is it to tap on weather.....
On a side note, does Scott Forestall really need a geofence remnder to call his wife? If so, i would say his marrage is prolly not the healthiest..

 

[northernbaldy]

Being English and speaking English
I bet the thing won't have a clue what I'm talking about

 

[hcho3]

Will Siri be intelligent enough to find out which gas stations have the cheapest price points?

Will siri be helpful enough to find me a local deal?

I also own a small business and this will be a ground breaking feature for me.

If not, apple can take it back.

 

[Asclepio]

macrumors received an email from cupertino today...

 

[euphlyusUNO]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-gb) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8H7 Safari/6533.18.5)

What's it like with non-American accents? Most voice recognition programs are RUBBISH because I wouldn't say "my mom is..." I'd say "my mum is..." (in my native accent) so it wouldn't work.

If it's like anything else Apple, they haven't tested it outside the USA.

There's a video by BBC, check it out, it understands british accent and also replies in one

 

[arn]

Good for txting.....everyhing else is jst a tap instead..ie. How ard is it to tap on weather.....
On a side note, does Scott Forestall really need a geofence remnder to call his wife? If so, i would say his marrage is prolly not the healthiest..

Dictating notes also seems nice.

arn

 

[RoboCop001]

Can't wait for Siri to come to jailbroken iPhone 4's!

I think someone from the JB community has verified that it can't run on older hardware.

https://twitter.com/#!/Gojohnnyboi/status/121657721400475648

 

[Fainer]

Can't wait for Siri to come to jailbroken iPhone 4's!

Oh yea! I didn't even think of this! Do you think it will happen?

 

[zin]

Being English and speaking English
I bet the thing won't have a clue what I'm talking about

Siri comes with support for UK English, according to the keynote.

 

[Friscohoya]

As computational power improves and these things get real world use/feedback, this will ultimately lead to the end of the smartphone. At least in the form thart we currently see it in. This will lead to either a contact lens or projection glasses where the screen is projected in front of you and the primary means of interaction is done by voice. I expect that in 5 years this technoloy will be ubiquitous and cheap (the virtual assistant part that is).

 

[monaarts]

Good for txting.....everyhing else is jst a tap instead..ie. How ard is it to tap on weather.....
On a side note, does Scott Forestall really need a geofence remnder to call his wife? If so, i would say his marrage is prolly not the healthiest..

Lol. That's funny... I'll give you an example though... The other day I went home from work and was supposed to call my wife when I was leaving the house a couple hours later because she was going to meet me at a restaurant.... I forgot to call her and when I got to the restaurant I remembered and I had to wait for her for like 20 minutes. I can just say "remind me to call my wife when I leave home"


;-)

 

[richardsonrs]

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I want to be able to open apps with it. "start angry birds" "open world of goo". Something like that. Easier to not have to find them myself.

 

[adcx64]

I'm stunned at what Siri can do.

 

[wikus]

Meh.