Hey Siri - The Best iPhone Voice Commands to Use Daily

Apple's Siri has been around longer than a decade and is now no longer in its infancy. Millions of people have Siri available and there are some really helpful, cool, and interesting voice commands available that we believe are worth using, but how many of us know how to get the best out of Siri? With many of us opting to pay a premium price for Apple products, we should be making the most out of the features available to us, and so we have listed our favourite and most used Siri voice commands, so you can use them too.

1. Call People

In at number 1 is using Siri to call people. It's quite often I use Siri to call people as it makes multi-tasking much easier, like when getting ready to go out.

Say for example you are getting dressed and your iPhone is lying a couple of metres away on a desk, at this point, you could say: "Hey Siri, call big sis on loudspeaker", or "Hey Siri call so and so on loudspeaker", and Siri will do that for you.

Using Siri to turn on the loudspeaker with the call request is really handy, I actually did not know about this for some time and when I stumbled across this, I started using Siri to make calls more often. Do note that this feature only works when the person you are calling is listed as a contact in your contacts list.

2. Play Something

Easily play something from your favourite YouTube channel or media library by telling your iPhone what to play. For example say: "Hey Siri, play the latest Stretford Paddock Video on YouTube."

This voice command opens YouTube automatically on your iPhone, finds the most accurate channel based on your phrase and then plays the most recent video for you.

3. Get Directions

For people who travel a lot, this command would be a go-to shortcut.

Simply say: "Hey Siri, direct me to London Science Museum" or any other location you want to head to, and Siri will either open the maps ready to start the journey, or find you a list of options and ask if one of those options is the place you wanted, if you say "yes", the map application will open and provide you with the journey route.

4. Find out when your Favourite Sports Team is Playing

It's not often this command is heard being used, but it is a good voice command for times when you don't want to lose focus of what you are doing. For example, if you are focused at work, and want to quickly find out when the game is broadcasting, as the thought of not knowing is nibbling away at you, simply say: "Hey Siri, when is the Man United game showing?"

5. Set Alarms

Imagine after a long day out with your friends you've come back home, had your shower, and lied down on your bed, and remember that you must wake up early tomorrow morning, but the fatugue in your body is quickly inducing you into a deep sleep and have only enough energy to say one more thing before you fall asleep, wouldn't it be great if you said: "Hey Siri, put an alarm on for 6 am."

It's as easy as that to set the alarm using Siri, allowing you to doze off without unnecessary expending of energy. The alarm can also be switched off by saying "Hey Siri, turn off my 6 am alarm."

6. Check the Weather and Get Recommendations

Checking the weather in your area is much easier than it was back in the day when having to use Teletext for the weather was a thing. To get the current weather simply say, "Hey Siri, What's the Weather like in London?" and Siri will break down today's weather for you.

7. Reminders

Easily set reminders on your iPhone by telling Siri to set the reminder at a specified time, for example, you can say "Hey Siri, remind me to call Abdul at 2:00 pm", or "Hey Siri, remind me to check Stack Overflow for answers at 11:00 am."

8. Send Messages

To send a message using Siri, you can say: "Hey Siri, send a message to big brother saying I will be down in 5 minutes."

By reading out loud what the message contents should say, it allows iPhone to listen to us and write up the message automatically and send it after getting approval.

Using my UK accent my text messages have been accurate and without issue. When needing to send messages to my contacts I have had excellent results which is awesome.

Do note that the person needs to be a contact in your iPhone's contacts list.

Another thing to note is that you can specify to your iPhone if you want it to use another messaging app like Whatsapp. Simply say: "Hey Siri, send a message using Whatsapp to Abdul saying I will be down in 5 minutes."

9. Toggle Tools and Features

9th on this list is to use Siri to turn on or off your iPhone features, settings, and tools. If you needed to use your iPhone's torch, it's as simple as saying: "Hey Siri, turn on torch", and Siri will get that started for you immediately, this can then be switched off by saying "Hey Siri, turn off torch."

Another good tool to use is the scanning feature, with many businesses providing QR codes for access to their products and services, it's a good thing that Siri can get the scanner ready in a flash, by telling it: "Hey Siri, scan this code."

There are many more tools and features that can be toggled using Siri, have a go and see if you can find what's relevant to you and your day-to-day activities.

10. Change Siri's Voice

Here is a bonus for all of you amazing people out there and it's not really a voice command. Slightly separate from the above, did you know that we are able to change Siri's voice?

It's super simple, and is even easier to get to the setting using Siri, simply say, "Hey Siri, I want to change your voice", and a second or two later your iPhone will display a button linking you to Siri's voice settings area. There are quite a few voices to choose from, but the one that sticks out the most for me is the American voice 3.

Wrapping it up

That's all in today's article. These are our favourite commands we think you'll use more often then not. We really hope you find these Siri commands useful in your day to day, and enjoy using them! Thanks for reading, we'll catch you on the next one.