Extensive List of Siri's Dictation Commands for iPhone 4S

[aberrero]

I know this is kind of off topic... but does anyone know for a fact why Apple didn't make Siri compatible with the iPhone 4? It doesn't make sense to me, considering that the 4 and the 4S both contain 512MB of RAM. Is it purely because of the A5 processor in the 4S?

It's probably because they don't have enough server capacity to handle all the iPhone 4 owners on Siri. Most of the work is done by Apple's servers, not the phone.

If they allowed all the iPhone 4 owners to use Siri it would take 3 times as long for it to respond. I'm sure they're working on upgrading their servers now, SIri is still in beta after all.

Note that this is just speculation on my part, but it makes sense. Apple could also just be greedy.

 

[uhclem]

Is it possible to spell words in Siri?

I've used Naturally Speaking for years, so I know that there are times when it's very handy to be able to spell a word (or acronym, or whatever) that you know won't be recognized.

But I can't find anything about doing it in Siri.

I'm assuming the function isn't available. Does anyone know for sure?

 

[pensoftware]

I've used Naturally Speaking for years, so I know that there are times when it's very handy to be able to spell a word (or acronym, or whatever) that you know won't be recognized.

But I can't find anything about doing it in Siri.

I'm assuming the function isn't available. Does anyone know for sure?

Can't you just say "Y A D A"? For acryonyms that form a word like "DARE" you can just say "caps dare".

 

[uhclem]

Can't you just say "Y A D A"?

Nope. It returns it as "Why a P a".

In NaturallySpeaking, you can just say "Spell", pause a half a beat, then spell the word. When you pause again at the end of the word, it assumes you've left spelling mode.

A lot of Googling hasn't turned up any clues.

 

[pensoftware]

Nope. It returns it as "Why a P a".

In NaturallySpeaking, you can just say "Spell", pause a half a beat, then spell the word. When you pause again at the end of the word, it assumes you've left spelling mode.

A lot of Googling hasn't turned up any clues.

If it isn't implemented now, I'm sure Apple will release a Siri update that fixes both escaping commands as well as new features such as spelling a word.

EDIT: What would be a really cool feature is if it used changes in volume to signify automatic capitalization. Or if you yell into your phone with an angry tone then it would automatically capitalize the whole thing.

 

[ladeer]

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This is amazing. I just tried:

I spoke "I just had my period"
Siri typed "I just had my period"

I spoke "I just had my period period"
Siri typed "I just had my period."

I spoke "I want to go period"
Siri typed "I want to go."

!!!

 

[DeepIn2U]

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Can't figure out a way around this yet, despite my efforts.

I have a thought. Why not say "Scratch That" or "Scratch all of that" to escape out? Maybe 'cancel last command' ??

if not the above maybe it'll spark an idea for you to come up with the right answer.

 

[pensoftware]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

This is amazing. I just tried:

I spoke "I just had my period"
Siri typed "I just had my period"

I spoke "I just had my period period"
Siri typed "I just had my period."

I spoke "I want to go period"
Siri typed "I want to go."

!!!

Try, "I hate you comma period."

 

[Isidore]

Try, "I hate you comma period."

Not being American, I say full stop not period. Saying "I came to a full stop (pause) full stop" produced

I came to..

On the other hand, saying

"I was driving along when suddenly the engine seized and I came to a full stop."

Leaving no gap between the two full stops gave:
I was driving along when suddenly the engine seas Andy came to a full stop.

Well the system is only up and running for a few days and it's already better than the Newton.

 

[jouster]

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Can't you just say "Y A D A"?

Nope. It returns it as "Why a P a".

In NaturallySpeaking, you can just say "Spell", pause a half a beat, then spell the word. When you pause again at the end of the word, it assumes you've left spelling mode.

A lot of Googling hasn't turned up any clues.

"Spell" doesn't work? What about "letters"?

 

[jouster]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

I know this is kind of off topic... but does anyone know for a fact why Apple didn't make Siri compatible with the iPhone 4? It doesn't make sense to me, considering that the 4 and the 4S both contain 512MB of RAM. Is it purely because of the A5 processor in the 4S?

I heard that there could have also been licensing issues to get them on the iPhone 4.

Licensing issues? With whom? I thought the iPhone 4 already worked with Nuance and Dragon Dictation, and Siri is obviously part of Apple.

 

[Mike Oxard]

Not being American, I say full stop not period. Saying "I came to a full stop (pause) full stop" produced

I came to..

On the other hand, saying

"I was driving along when suddenly the engine seized and I came to a full stop."

Leaving no gap between the two full stops gave:
I was driving along when suddenly the engine seas Andy came to a full stop.

Well the system is only up and running for a few days and it's already better than the Newton.

What happens if you say "I came to a full stop period" ?

 

[Detlev]

Hazaa! Maybe the collective writing skills of the iPhone generation will rise now that they will have to know the terminology for punctuation.

Either that or every paper turned in, article written, and text sent will have that awkward run-on feel that every so often you get when the diction software doesn't quite understand that hey, I had a side thought there for a second, and that could have, if not would have been placed in a set of em-dash to separate it from the rest of the sentence.

 

[Les Kern]

What happens if you say "I came to a full stop period" ?

"I eat Martha"

 

[Digitalclips]

Can someone ask Siri if she knows Newton?

 

[mroddjob]

winky,
*sniggers*

 

[twcarlson]

Can Siri tell the difference?:
"There." (in reply to a request, "Can I have a sammich?")
"Their's." (in reply to a text, "Is it our's or their's?")
"They're." (in reply to a text, "Are they going to the concert?")

"Theirs" and "ours" actually have no apostrophes...English is stupid. Compare this to the classic "its" vs "it's" problem.

 

[douten]

I'm still trying to figure out how to make Siri type out actual numbers like 3, 4, etc. I tried 'number three' but it's still just text. Does anyone else know how?

 

[atari1356]

Woo! I made the MacRumors iOS blog.

I updated the list today with a few additional commands from suggestions made by people on Twitter and here.

 

[bhouser]

Borgonyms

If only it supported Borgonyms...

 

[pensoftware]

What does Siri transcribe/reply with when you ask, "Siri, make me a sammich."

 

[xxp84]

Hazaa??

Hazaa! Maybe the collective writing skills of the iPhone generation...

I find it humorous that you say that while misspelling "Huzzah" as apparently a derivative of the early 2000s filesharing program "KaZaA"!

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"Theirs" and "ours" actually have no apostrophes...English is stupid. Compare this to the classic "its" vs "it's" problem.

Better: Just like with "its," all the possessive pronouns in English (theirs, ours, yours, its, his, hers) take no apostrophes.

Some of our rules are silly, but at least that one's internally consistent, if not congruent for the rules for other possessives.

 

[smithwales]

Tammy to Tami??

Before I ask my wife to change the spelling of her name, has anyone found a solution to spelling a word letter-by-letter? Siri WILL call her from my contacts even though she is listed as Tami, and not Tammy, but voice to text only comes up Tammy.

 

[Himmat]

Ellipses

One thing that I noticed is missing from the list that I found out about because I use it a LOT (probably far more than I should... ) and that's ellipsis- say, "I shouldn't use so many of these ellipsis" and Siri will 'type' "I shouldn't use so many of these..."

One thing I haven't figured out yet- how to make Siri NOT interpret those commands (like 'period') as the punctuation symbol and use the word itself. For example, I don't know how I could have composed this using Siri because every time I'd say 'ellipsis' it would replace it with '...'

If you say "ellipsis," you will get "..." If you say "ellipses," you will get "ellipses." In the case of your sentence, "I shouldn't use so many of these ellipsis", you are referring to plural ellipses (not, plural "ellipsises" or singular "ellipsi" or "ellips"). Therefore, if you would have (properly) said "I shouldn't use so many of these ellipses", then you would have achieved your goal.

Sorry for being snooty.

 

[xaviila]

Spell a word for Siri

It is possible to spell a word for Siri by saying 'no caps on','no space on', (spell word), 'no caps off', 'no space off' (say remaining text).
See this youtube video demonstration of the spelling commands:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMN...DvjVQa1PpcFPlygiU16zs4u9O2B4opzagY1D93LW2eus=

I hope Apple will soon improve the spelling feature as I find it a bit more complicated than it should be. I used Dragon as well and found the spell correction commands much better.