Siri Secret Commands

You've probably already mastered how to treat Siri to get the information you want, rather than some absurd answers Apple’s intelligent assistant gives if it misunderstood your command. Below you’ll find some random useful tips on how to make it easier for Siri to precisely understand what you mean.

If you have created playlists and given them certain names, for example: ‘morning songs’ or ‘romantic’ or just anything, you can make Siri play it for you if your command sounds the following way: Play playlist + playlist name.

If you’re a busy person you probably get tones of e-mails daily. To easily sort and find e-mails by certain sender, ask Siri to: Find all email by and a contact name.

Did you know that Siri can tell you the name of that actor you know you’ve seen before but just can’t remember the name? Simply ask: Who was in the cast of and name the movie. One more thing about movies, if you’d like to get information about movie times and ticket purchasing in your area, your command should sound like this: [Movie Name] show times [zip code - optional]" – to get best results. However if you have set Google in Safari to use your current location, you don’t even need to specify an area code.

If you’ve set it up on social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, or others that let you update via SMS, Siri will message your status right to it if you say: Message + specify social network+ status: what you’d like Siri to post.

To get Siri find sports scores efficiently, just say: Yahoo/Google/Bing (or whatever) + Team name+ score, for example: Google Chelsea score – and you’ll get the answer. In this way you’ll not only be shown the current score if the game is currently in progress, but it will show the team record, score of the last game, and upcoming game.

And now, check some of the crazy answers Siri usually gives to your stupid questions below.

Apple’s New iCloud Harmony Ad

Apple has just released a new iCloud-themed commercial which has the clear purpose – show the advantages of their push and store network. The ad opens with an iPhone user tapping “Use iCloud” upon configuration a 4S, then buying an album. A set of sequences then begin, where the user performs an action on their iPhone and shows up on other devices.

During the commercial several things take place, e.g.:

• Purchasing an album on iPhone and it appears on iPad and MacBook Air.
• Taking a photo and it shows up on the both devices.
• A user changes calendar and the change in applied on the other devices.
• A user installs Flipboard and the application is downloaded to iPad automatically.
• Creating a new contact on iPhone and it shows up on MacBook Air.
• And : A user downloads books for iPhone which show up on iPad as well.

In a word, the commercial says that with iCloud the stuff you love is everywhere you need… Automatically!

Now take a look at the commercial!

P.S. It is interesting to note that only the iPhones initiate action in the commercial and no human is involved with the iPad or the Macs.

iPhone 4S in China Soon

After the mess in China , Apple turned to a strategy and  some lucky users could get iPhone 4S. But now not only lucky people will be able to get their hands on the gadget. Because China Telecom on Monday has announced that iPhone 4S will be selling by them. More concretely to say, Chinese people will have opportunity to get the dream phone on March 9th. But if you are too impatient, you can reserve the phone online on March 2nd. 

According to the company, iPhone 4S will be available starting at RMB 0 for the 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB models on select contracts in China Telecom authorized stores and online. 

Apple spokesperson Natalie Harrison told to the Loop: “iPhone 4S has been an incredible hit with customers around the world. We're thrilled to be launching iPhone 4S with China Telecom and can't wait to get it into the hands of even more customers in China."

As the matter of the fact China is the second largest market for application store downloads , the release of the iPhone 4S on China Telecom will add to Apple’s sales since the device was released on China Unicom. However China Telecom has about 216 million total fixed-line and mobile subscribers! Considering Apple’s payment policy in China  and the company’s store in Shanghai , Apple will surely get unbelievable results at the end of the quarter.

Siri For Older iDevices Now Available

Installing Siri on unsupported devices without setting up proxy server is now available by using AssistantConnect4S! This yet one more Cydia tweak regarding Apple’s voice-recognition assistant software makes it possible to import Siri on your iDevice other than iPhone 4S.

There have been several Siri ports available for wielding jailbroken devices, but even the best one required a moderate amount of configuration in order to get things up and running satisfactorily. Not to create a gap between your expectations and what you perceive, it should be noted that nothing compares to real Siri, even not this latest tweak called AssistantConnect4S… However, it’s comparatively better when iPhone 4S users are allowed to send their authentication info to non-iPhone 4S devices quickly and simply via email…The recipients can then use Siri natively without having to rely on a proxy server to handle requests. In order to avoid blacklisting or detection, it’s recommended to only send the data to no more than 5 other devices. Once your device gets the authentication, you’re allowed to use Siri in full, and as wished-for!

Despite the fact that Apple began purging Siri use on proxy servers, and although the reliable Cydia developers supplied a fix almost as quickly as the action was discovered, it’s a fact that the company dislikes the unauthorized use a lot. Moreover, iPhone 4S has been declared to be the only one capable to run Siri, but that doesn't hinder many jailbroken device owners to set alarms and reminders, search for places to eat or send SMSes with the voice-recognition software!

However, AssistantConnect4S is not a panacea and has some requirements to be fully functional. You’ll first of all need to jailbreak your device to install this tweak. Also note that when you use the tweak for the first time, you’ll need to open AssistantConnect4S and reboot your iPhone 4S. Once rebooted, open up AssistantConnect4S and activate Siri.

Below you’ll find a video tutorial spread over the internet recently, describing a step by step process on how to setup AssistantConnect4S on the iPhone 4S and AssistantConnect on non-iPhone 4S devices. Do not forget t come back and share your thoughts about this latest tweak!

Implications Siri May Cause – Be Aware

Siri has made life of millions a lot easier, and iPhones are now more convenient than ever with iOS5— but they also leave you open to everything from pranks to data loss you may not think of. Below you’ll find several examples on how Siri can drag you into extremely embarrassing or simply undesirable situations.

We all know that Siri is activated by holding down the Home button, but have you ever thought that it also deactivates the Passcode Lock? Although this brilliant personal assistant is restricted to delete contacts or search the web without the lock code being entered, Siri can still perform number of tasks such as calling your contacts or delete your alarms. What we want by this to say is that everyone passing by is enabled to get access to your contacts private data by just knowing the contact’s name, or moreover, just knowing the relationship status between you, by simply asking questions about your “boss”, “sister” or “mom” to get the data. One more hazardous thing is that anyone can prank you by telling Siri to call you some funny or rude name and may embarrass you when you expect it least.

To avoid appearing in such a situation, you can simply go to Settings> General> Passcode Lock and flip the Siri toggle to Off. But note that if you disable Siri’s passcode bypass, the speed and the ease of access to this unique feature will be decreased as you won’t be able to just hold a button and start talking to have Siri perform something for you, for instance when you’re driving. 

One more threat enclosed to Siri is that sharing iPhone 4S contacts also shares Siri relationships you have set. To be more concrete, this means that when you send a contact via your iPhone 4S built in sharing, you send not just a name and a phone number, but EVERYTHING in that contact, including the relationships set up by Siri. To be even more concrete, this means that you may share what you call your girlfriend or a rude nickname you called your boss while you were angry… You may call it a bug or just inattentiveness, but there is no solution to prevent this, but to either text or manually send your contacts. Let’s hope that Apple constrains card sharing to common fields in an upcoming iOS update. But till then, if you do care for privacy, you need to think twice before sharing an entire contact card to avoid future implications… 

Creative SIRI Advertisings

Take a look at the just released iPhone 4S ads. Both of them focus on SIRI, the virtual personal assistant of the phone.

The advertisings are entitled as ‘Road Trip’ and ‘Rock God.’

‘Road Trip’ shows that using SIRI is one of the good ways to learn the best route, to find the best barbecue, to find out where you are, to learn what the constellation Orion looks like or to learn how big the Grand Canyon is and etc… The ad shows how helpful SIRI is.

As for ‘Rock God,’ it is about a young man who plans a music carrier. Using SIRI he finds out where to by a guitar, how to play certain songs, etc. with SIRI’s help he sends messages to the ladies about when and where his band will be practicing. But most impressing is fin of the ad…

Alternative SIRI for iPhone4 Users

iPhone4S users are really lucky because they have got an amazing feature called SIRI. It can actually be described as most lovely feature of the phone; so it is logic if users of earlier iPhone models are jealous. But iPhones never disappoint us.

“Voice Control” functionality is a limited tool for iPhone4. It is very useful one if used correctly. Here are the tips which will help you out.

• Go to your iPhone’s ’Setting’ menu, select ’General,’ scroll down to see ’International,’ hit ’Voice Control’ and choose which language you would like to use from the list. But if you speak the language of the country you bought your iPhone in, then you do not need default settings.

• Press and hold the Home button in order to activate your phone’s Voice Control Function. After prompted by the tone, speak your command straight away, but delays can cause unpredictable results.

P.S. if you use a Bluetooth headset, you need to press and hold the call button to activate.

• For best results, you should hold the phone to your face, as you would on a call. If you do hold the handset in front of you, it should not be more than 12 inches away.

• The key command words for calling are “call” and "dial." The word “dial” you use when you are reading out a number that is not in your contacts. “Call” works for named contacts. You need to add the surname if you have several contacts with the same name. Do not use possessive names. Say “call … on his/her mobile” instead of “call …’s mobile.”

• If your phone will not recognize a certain name, you need to give that contact a nickname by going into the contact, hitting "Edit" > "add field" > "Nickname."

• Voice Control can handle your music playback as well. The basic command terms are: "play songs by [Artist Name]," "play [Album Name]," "play [Playlist Name]," "pause," "previous song," "next song," "shuffle" and "play more songs like this."

• But the most amazing fact is that your phone can identify music! You will get the answer if you ask "what is playing?" or "who is this song by?"

• If the phone has trouble recognizing an artist or album name, you should put the tracks into a playlist and give it an easy to identify name.

• And the last thing Voice Control will do for you is to tell the time. Just ask it "what is the time?" or "what time is it?"

See also:

10 secrets about SIRI;

5 hidden tricks of iPhone you should know!

Some surprise for you under iOS5.

One More SIRI Trick

We are continuing to collect useful information about SIRI  and SIRI is continuing to surprise us. 

Today’s trick is about how to quickly access birthdays with SIRI.  Rhythm of life is tiring and routine that is why sometimes we forget very important things, e.g. birthdays.  But an amazing feature of your phone   is here to help you. You will not have to worry, fake a distraction, jump out the window, race to the car, etc. just because you forgot special someone’s special day. Just make sure you have the birthday recorder in your calendar in your iPhone4S , all the remaining will be done by SIRI. 

You just need to hold down the Home button until SIRI  pops up; then ask SIRI “When is […’s] birthday?” consider you can also ask your own birthday, e.g. “when is my birthday?” or ask the question with proper names. You can include even relationships, for example “When is my wife’s birthday?”, provided they have been added to the contact. After you ask the question wait for SIRI to answer.

Now you can be an inattentive as never before. Just do not forget to ask SIRI  the question permanently. 

Apple and Android Are Getting Closer Day By Day

Though Android is still the leader in mobile operating system race, after releasing of the iPhone 4S, the gap is getting smaller. 

According to a study from Nielsen which was conducted among 75,000 consumers over the age of 18, releasing of iPhone 4S had an enormous impact on consumer purchasing decisions. Among those who bought a new smartphone in December, 44.5% chose an iPhone, compared to just 25.1 percent in October.

Android continues to lead among all U.S. smartphone users with 46.3 percent, but it declined from 61.6 percent in October to 46.9 percent in December. As we all can see, Apple's phones’ growth is a great detriment for Android.

We should consider, that 46% of U.S. mobile consumers had smartphones as of December 2011, so in 2012, as more people buy a smartphone, the battle between the companies is set to get even hotter, however if Apple releases iPhone5… 

Mess in China

As promised , selling of the iPhone 4S in China and in other countries has begun. No Apple product was launched without long lines and frustration but all the expectations have been exceeded now. Some fights were breaking out near the Apple’s “main store in Beijing” between the people who just wanted to buy the phone. Some of them waited overnight in the freezing cold (-9 degrees) to become the first to purchase the phone.  

The store was pelted with eggs too from a crowd of about 500 people. Reason of the action was that opening the store was delayed by at least an hour. Apple had advertised that the store would open at 7 a.m. and at 7.15 a.m. people began crying “Open the door!” and “Liars!” The conflict was significant enough to attract the attention of police; it temporarily cordoned off the shop. The company has become a victim of its own success...

Therefore Apple has decided to postpone the retail availability of its iPhone 4S at the stores in Beijing and Shanghai. People can get the device through Apple’s Web site or buy at China Unicom and other authorized resellers.

An Apple spokesman told: “The demand for iPhone 4S has been incredible, and our stores in China have already sold out. Unfortunately, we were unable to open our store at Sanlitun due to the large crowd, and to ensure the safety of our customers and employees, iPhone will not available in our retail stores in Beijing and Shanghai for the time being.”

Availability On iPhone 4S Will Widen

After ten days of releasing iPhone 4S , 22 countries have been added to the list  of the countries where pre-orders were available for the phone. However demand on the phone continues even today because it is not available worldwide yet. As for now Apple has announced that in January-13 the phone will be making its way to China and other countries. As the matter of the fact the smartphone will be launched before the Chinese New Year (January 23rd), Chinese people will not have to think too much about presents for lovely people.

The phone will be sold through the Apple Online Store, Apple’s retail stores and select Apple Authorized Resellers. Pricing is not announced in local currencies, although it is listed as $199, $299 and $399, depends on flash memory unit - 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models. Consider iPhone 3GS is free! A two year contract is required to obtain the phones from participating carriers .

The phone will be available in other countries as well. These countries are: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Botswana, British Virgin Islands, Cameroon, Cayman Islands, Central African Republic, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Grenada, Guam, Guinea Conakry, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Niger, Senegal, St. Vincent and The Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos and Uganda.

But China is the key market among those countries because the  addressable market in China for potential smartphone users, which includes iOS and Android, is 122 million! Besides, China is the second largest market  for application store downloads. Other important things connecting to the issue is Apple’s payment policy  in China and the company’s store in Shanghai . 

Availability on Apple’s products increases day by day…

Data Hungry iPhone 4S

Could you imagine that the iPhone 4S demands twice as much data as iPhone 4 and three times as much as iPhone 3G? A study, released in Jan-6 by U.K.-based telecom network technology firm Arieso, looked at data usage across a variety smartphones and connected devices. It claims that iPhone 4S users are the hungriest data consumers in iPhone family. 

The Arieso study, “Recent Smartphone Trends & the Extreme Data User” reveals a trend that each new device is more data hungry than the last. According to it, one thing is obvious - capacity issues plaguing mobile operators around the world will worsen in 2012.

The most significant change in users behavior has been catalyzed after introduction of the iPhone 4S. Its users download 2.76 times as much data as users of the iPhone 3G!

Author of the study Dr. Michael Flanagan commented: “The introduction of increasingly sophisticated devices, coupled with growing consumer demand, is creating unrelenting pressure on mobile networks. The capacity crunch is still a very real threat for mobile operators, and it looks set to only get harder in 2012 the mobile industry needs new investment and new approaches to boost network performance and manage the customer experience”.

Are you a little bit surprised/frustrated to know iPhone 4S consumes more than other models?

Siri Helps Santa Get through a Busy Night

A new Christmas commercial by Apple, rolled out recently, shows Santa using iPhone 4S, particularly SIRI, for managing his 3.7 Billion appointments in a night! This video is a great example of how to effectively advertise your products, without even naming the brand or the model, or the feature name!

Now kids can really understand how Santa manages to get to know their houses and deliver the gifts to them so timely! With the help of iPhone 4S’s digital assistant, Siri, even the busiest person can successfully get through a busy day… Sorry, night!

Still battery problems

The fact, that iPhone 4S has problems with battery life, is not news for its users. But after releasing iOS 5.0.1 update , the users hoped that problems would be eliminated.

However, the problem has still occurred and some users are complaining about the issue. Apple continues working on the problem, its spokesperson Trudy Muller reported:
“The recent iOS software update addressed many of the battery issues that some customers experienced on their iOS 5 devices, we continue to investigate a few remaining issues.”

via macworld

What Competitors Think of SIRI

Since iPhone 4S has been released, users are very happy because of its main function - SIRI. However, it does not seem that other industry players are glad too. Contrariwise, many of them see a reasonable competitive threat in it.

In September Google’s executive chairman appeared on Capitol Hill. Eric Schmidt frankly answered to all the questions about his company’s competitors. He said that Apple was not considered as a competitive threat until it released SIRI, which he called a “significant development.” He admits that SIRI is the biggest threat to Google’s control of search by now.

“Eric might be more right than he knows,” says Gary Morgenthaler, the first investor in SIRI in 2008, “A million blue links from Google is worth far less than one correct answer from Siri,” he adds.

In October Senior Vice President of Mobile at Google Andy Rubin said in an interview: “I don’t believe that your phone should be an assistant, your phone is a tool for communicating. You shouldn’t be communicating with the phone; you should be communicating with somebody on the other side of the phone.”

Microsoft's President of Windows Phone, Andy Lees says in an interview with Ina Fried that users can talk to their Windows Phone too, but implementations, which SIRI has, are not very useful.

It seems that the appearance of Siri has endangered Amazon as well.  Just like Apple, Amazon has opened app store, offered mp3 download store, streaming and cloud storage services recently. It also snapped up Yap, but quietly. Yap is a voice recognition software company which owned a good chunk of speech-recognition property since 2006. With this strategy Amazon has an opportunity to keep pace with Apple’s SIRI feature. The purchase has been revealed yesterday, although it was actually completed in September.

No matter what competitors say, think or do, the fact is that SIRI is an amazing function of the phone because the users are extremely satisfied. Gary Morgenthaler thinks that if people start using SIRI to bypass search that will be a huge threat to Google. The only problem can occur for SIRI is that it cannot make money with advertising.

IPhone 4S voice problems

Since iPhone4S has been released, the user opinion has divided into two - some of them are extremely happy but others have endless problems. The new trouble linked to the phone is about SIRI. People are complaining of being unable to access service at a time.

SIRI used to have trouble in accessing the network but it only lasted for minutes. Now the only answer it can give is: “I am sorry, I am having trouble connecting to the network.”  However, the problem has not occurred for every user, but it still is timely.

Beside SIRI trouble, the users cannot hear the person “on the other end of the wire” during some calls. But it can be fixed by plugging in a headset or pressing the mute button twice or by disabling SIRI.

Is it software bug or a hardware problem, is still obscure.

iOS 5 Battery Problems

Not long since iPhone4S has been released, and some users already complain about the battery performance, asking for some assistance by installing a monitoring program. Fortunately the problem concerned only some users, not for all. The trouble is not affecting just the iPhone 4S, but any other IOS5 devices as well.

According to the specs , the iPhone 4S is supposed to get 200 hours of standby mode but now it actually gets 8 hours only.

Apple has confirmed that battery performance actually have  a few problems after upgrading to IOS5.

Statement released by Apple on Wednesday says: “We have found a few bugs that are affecting battery life and we will release a software update to address those in a few weeks.”

Apple has not offered any advice on what customers should do until the software update is released. The fact is that having too many GPS-based location services turned on may cause the phone to lose battery life fast. Another possible culprit is the new Notification system in IOS5. Forums contain various potential fixes, there may be hope, that my help.

Here are some examples:

The calendar bug - disable the calendar app within the Notifications center;

The Time Zone bug - go into Settings > Location Services > System Services > Setting Time Zone, and toggle off the location services;

Location services - Head into Settings > Location Services and browse through the various apps. The option to turn it off which is there for no reason.

SIRI – it uses up a lot of processing power

Then of course: you should turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, turn down screen brightness, etc.

The truth is that it’s not magical solution to this problem; you should wait until software update is released.

10 secrets about SIRI

One of the most useful functions of SIRI is ‘commands,’ also known as ‘talking to your phone.” Most people know its main abilities but here are some secret capabilities of the feature.

Did you know that SIRI can:

• Understand many basic symbols, emoticons and punctuation marks, as long as you say them by the right name. Examples include “open parenthesis”, “close square bracket”, ” “frowned face”, “new paragraph”, “pound sign”, etc.

You should choose among and ask the SIRI [Punctuation/symbols/emoticons]

• Play not just a song, but a whole playlist for you.

The keywords are Play playlist [playlist name]

• Give you a short list of e-mails from the contact you ask for.

You should command the following words: Find all email by [contact]

• Show you all your appointments for today, tomorrow, or any date, you wish.

You should say: what’s on my calendar for [date]

• Search the competition for you, if Google is not your cup of tea.

Say the phrase: Search [Bing/Yahoo]

• Search for. Whether you want the latest scores, show times, etc., if you phrase it just right, SIRI can often find it for you.

You need to say: Search [Google/Bing/Yahoo] for [specialized information] [time] [place]

• Tell you the name of that actor you know you have seen before but just cannot remember.

To receive an answer, ask: Who was in the cast of [movie]?

• Delete all alarms, not just individual ones.

Just say: Delete all alarms

• Message your status right to it, if you have set it up on any social network that lets you update via SMS.

The keywords for Siri are: Message [Social network] [Status]

• Re-spring the Springboard. It is not a full reboot, but it is faster.

Use the word Restart.

Best iPhone Deals for UK

The endless queues at Apple stores are no surprise, as Apple continue to innovate the technology market. The more innovative the company is, the more people desire to get iDevices.  Apple has shown numerous examples of excess demand, because of which more and more people are left disappointed when stock shortages hit, and stores leave apple fanboys without desired devices.

The iPhone 4S has proven extremely popular, selling out around the world leaving many customers disappointed. Demand is still very strong, and iPhone stock levels very low. With iPhone 4S stock low, and available on all the major UK networks, demand is even stronger and competition fierce to attract new and current iPhone customers.

With every iPhone release we see the same problems of stock shortages, as customers struggle to get their hands on the new iPhone. Fortunately for the UK population, they can now get the best iPhone deals and up to the minute availability for iPhones can be found at their digital fingertips.

UK customers can now check iPhone Stock online from the service provided by iPhoneStock.co.uk, for UK networks. Their stock checker service checks online stocks throughout the day, and displays the latest iPhone availability directly on their website. Their iPhone 4S stock checker has allowed many UK customers to easily check online stock of the new iPhone and get their order placed quickly. 

They also provide UK customers with some of the best online iPhone deals as well as Vouchers and discount codes, and even updates you with the latest news about the topic. You’ll also soon be able to compare the best iPhone contracts deals, minutes, texts and data combos, limits and prices of different UK network iPhone contracts, including contracts on O2, Orange, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Three and Tesco Mobile. 

iPhone stock may seem to be somewhat altruistic at the first glance. However the website gathers the stock information the best iPhone deals within the UK and delivers it in an easy format. It’s a great service for UK customers looking to get their hands on an iPhone 4S, or those looking for a cheap iPhone contract or best iPhone deal.  

IPhone 4S available in 22 more countries

It’s already 10 days since Apple began selling out its new product - iPhone 4S in several countries (U.S., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the UK).  22 other countries have now been added to the list of the countries where iPhone 4S pre-orders are available. People have already paid for the phone which is not available in their country yet. These countries are: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Filling orders in these countries will begin on 28th October. By the end of the year iPhone 4S will be available in more than 70 countries in total.

On 16th October the company announced that Apple has sold more than 4 million units of iPhone 4S in a week. This is Apple’s record because it took 3 weeks to sell 3 million iPhone4 last year.