Siri is a built-in voice-controlled personal assistant available to Apple users. You can talk to her like you talk to your friends and she will aid you in accomplishing tasks like reservations for dinner and sending text messages. Siri works flawlessly with your iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Apple Watch, HomePod, or Mac. Just to talk to Siri to find and you can get a task done.

You can ask her questions, tell her to show something, or order her to do it hands-free on your behalf. Siri can access all other embedded applications such as email, contacts, messages, maps and Safari on your Apple device.

Starting Siri

You can ask Siri to perform the task you can simply say “Hey Siri” to your iPhone, AirPods, connected Bluetooth headset, Apple Watch, HomePod, or HomePod mini. You can also launch Siri with a button. If you have an iPhone with Touch ID, hold down the home button and tell us what to do.

For iPhones with Face ID, press and hold the power / wake button on the side. On some devices, you may have to wait for Siri to appear before making a request. On HomePod and HomePod mini, you can press the home button in the top center of your device.

What features does Siri have?

With Siri you can do a lot. She is very smart and funny too. Otherwise, if you have a car that is compatible with CarPlay, Siri will provide you with sports and entertainment information, text messages and phone calls, configurations, tips and tricks, and of course, answers on the go.

With a quick glance, she reads your emails, informs your friends if you are running late, shuffles road trip playlists on Apple Music, teaches the movies that are showing for the day or make a phone call. She also tells you which good restaurants are nearby, finds books by the author of your preference, sets an alarm clock, gives directions, and detects you inside. You can also set reminders to wake up, or leave a specific location.

However, that’s not all. It can do twice as much than this. She will tell you the weather tomorrow, postpone the meeting and tell you when the next match will benefit your team. She can also have the dice rolled along with a variety of other things, such as teaching pronunciation of different words. It is pretty wise.

Language and voice

Siri has many different languages like English in Australian, Canadian, Indian, British, and American accents apart from that more languages including Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Beijing, Norwegian, Cantonese, Swedish, Danish, can speak and understand Dutch, Russian, Turkish, Thai and Portuguese.

The way to change Siri’s voice is similar in both iPhone and iPad. If you have an Apple Watch, Siri uses the same language set on your iPhone.

1. Select “Siri Search” in the settings.
2. Here you will be presented with four options when you select “Siri Voice.”
3. You can preview each option by tapping n each voice. The prompt you will hear with each tap is “Hi, I’m Siri. Choose the voice you want me to use.”
4. Select the one you want to use and your selected voice will be then downloaded and saved.

If you have a Mac computer you can change the voice here too. With macOS Big Sur 11.3, four-voice options are available.

1. Open System Preferences by going to the Apple menu on the top left corner.
2. Tap “Siri.”
3. Here you can select the voice option you want to choose.

Another important point to consider is that you can choose from a variety of accents like American, British, Irish, and South African. However, if you choose the American variety you will have two new choices.

You can also change the gender of Siri’s voice. If you need to Siri voice in male or female, go to Settings then select Siri & search. If you have an Apple device then tap Apple Menu and open System Preferences then Siri.

Siri settings can also be changed on HomePod via the Home app and Apple Watch via the Watch app. Siri Voice alternatives for gender and dialect rely on the language you pick. Here in these settings you can allow or disallow the “Hey Siri” command, in addition, to viewing Siri Shortcuts, and determine if you permit the use of Siri on your phone when it is locked or unlocked.

How does Siri work?

Siri works on the principles of artificial intelligence and natural language processing. It consists of three components: conversational interface, personal context awareness, and service delegation. The conversation interface is mainly about the way that Siri understands you.

A common way for word-by-word direct speech recognition to work should be good for listening to what you’re saying, but interpreting meaning relies on statistics and machine learning, which is where personal context awareness systems come into play.

Final thoughts

Siri has gained a lot of popularity among users in the last few years among many other devices like Google Home Smart Speaker with Google Assistant. It has made lives easier and convenient and has allowed automating day-to-day tasks which can be mundane for us. However, it is also advisable to first research Siri and its features before making it a part of your daily routine. It is easy to use, install and manage.