Talking to Siri: Learning the Language of Apple's Intelligent Assistant

by Erica Sadun, Steve Sande

Overview

Sweet-talk Siri® for iOS 6 into doing practically anything!

In iOS 6 and OS X Mountain Lion, Siri is more amazing than ever—and it’s even better when you really know how to talk to it. Now, two top Apple® tech experts show how to talk the newest version of Siri into doing more than you ever thought possible! Look up what you want to do, and you’ll find tested step-by-step instructions for getting perfect results—including new ways to do everything from checking football scores to posting on Facebook!

• Teach Siri to recognize requests and take dictation more accurately
• Check Yelp reviews and place OpenTable restaurant reservations
• Launch apps hands-free
• Find out where your friends are right now
• Choose a great movie with Rotten Tomatoes reviews
• Get up-to-the-minute player stats for baseball, football, or soccer
• Blog with Siri using email or text messaging
• Tweet updates, complete with location or appointment info
• Create location-based reminders that trigger at destinations like the drugstore
• Help Siri recognize and connect with your family and friends
• Transform Siri into your personal media DJ
• Find the nearest store that’s selling whatever you want
• Answer math and science problems with Wolfram Alpha
• Make sure Siri responds only to you, not to an impostor
• Discover the silliness Apple engineered into Siri

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780789750693
Publisher:	Que
Publication date:	01/21/2013
Pages:	205
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 6.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Erica Sadun writes a lot of books and blogs at TUAW. When not writing, she’s a full-time parent of geeks who are brushing up on their world-domination skills. According to her academic dosimeter, she’s acquired more education than any self-respecting person might consider wise. She enjoys deep-diving into technology.

Steve Sande also writes way too much. He’s the hardware editor at TUAW and has logged more than 1.5 million words written for the blog in a little more than 4 years. He’s written a number of books for Take Control Books and Apress, is married to a rocket scientist, and spends his days being bossed by a cat.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

1 Getting Started with Siri 1

Enabling Siri on iOS 2

Universal Access 6

Enabling Dictation on OS X 7

Privacy 9

Launching Siri on iOS 10

Saying Hello to Siri 11

Canceling Siri 13

Repeating Siri 14

Quitting Siri 14

Getting Help 15

Siri Listens 17

Listening on OS X 19

Siri Responds 20

Correcting Siri 21

Correcting Speech on OS X 23

Enhancing Your Speech Recognition 24

Clarity 25

Fumbles 26

Viewing Items You Create 27

Multilingual Siri 28

New in Siri 29

Living with Siri Limitations 30

Let Siri Learn About You 31

Summary 31

2 Asking Siri for Information 35

Weather 36

Other Queries 37

Locations 37

Web Search 39

Searching for Pictures 41

Searching in Wikipedia 41

The Search the Web Option 42

Checking Flights 42

Sports and Siri 43

Checking Stocks 46

Using Wolfram Alpha 48

Querying Wolfram 50

Wolfram Mode 52

The Wolfram Saving Throw 52

Wolfram Alpha Trick Lets You Know What Is Flying Overhead 53

Other Cool Stuff You Can Do with Wolfram Alpha 55

Summary 56

3 Using Siri to Stay in Touch 59

Contacts 60

Searching for Contacts 62

Creating Relationships 63

Creating an Alternative Identity for Yourself 65

Placing Phone Calls with Siri 67

Text Messages 68

Reading Texts 69

Replying to Texts 70

Sending Messages 70

Confirming Messages 71

Mail 72

Creating Mail 72

Checking Mail 75

Responding to Mail 75

Social Networking 75

Friends 76

Summary 79

4 Talking to Your Day-Timer 81

Calendars 82

Adding Events 82

Making Changes 83

Checking Your Calendar 84

Reminders 86

How Siri Can Remind You 88

A Word of Caution 89

Creating Notes 90

Creating Single-Item Notes 90

Adding Items to the Current Note 91

Starting New Notes 92

Naming Notes 92

Finding Notes 93

Clock Functions 94

Alarms 94

Checking the Clock 97

Using a Timer 97

Summary 99

5 Going Shopping with Siri 101

Products and Services 102

Checking Prices 104

Shopping Math 105

Adding Sales Tax 105

Calculating Tips 106

Currency Conversion 107

Preparing a Shopping List 109

Sharing Shopping Lists via the Cloud 111

Shopping Limitations 112

Turn-by-Turn Directions 113

Using Turn-by-Turn to Known Destinations 115

Maps’ Search and Directions Limitations 115

Looking up Information on Maps 117

Making Restaurant Reservations 117

Checking out Movies 118

Siri’s Personal Movie Synopses 120

Summary 121

6 Pushing Limits with Siri 123

Launching Apps 124

Talking to Apps 125

Blogging with Siri 126

Creating a Post 126

Confirming Your Account 128

Blogging by Email 128

Other Blogging Services 131

Siri Security 132

Lock Screen and Siri 133

Music 134

Summary 136

7 Siri Dictation 137

Launching Dictation on iOS 138

Launching Dictation on OS X 138

Why Learn Dictation? 141

Enunciation Practice 142

Dictation 101 144

Improving Dictation 144

Inserting Punctuation 147

Controlling Flow 149

Adding Capitalization 150

Including Abbreviations 152

Dictating Technical Terms 154

Phone Numbers 155

Dates and Times 155

Prices 156

Smilies 157

Dictating Formatted Text 157

Addresses 157

URLs 158

Email Addresses 158

License Plates 159

Dictation Practice 159

Punctuation Practice 161

Summary 163

8 Having Fun with Siri 165

Siri Diversions 165

Asking About Siri 167

Siri Chitchat 171

Pop Culture Fun 174

Siri Miscellany 175

Siri Philosophy 178

Mining the Fun in Wolfram Alpha 179

Queries That Require Wolfram Prefixes 182

Summary 184

Appendix 187

Siri Quick Reference 187

Index 197