There are a few collections doing the rounds of things that you can say to Siri, and some good examples include this Siri list from TUAW and there’s plenty of examples of funny things you can say to Siri.
But until now they've mostly been based on the US, and as we know Siri works a little differently in the UK (although the fact it works at all is remarkable compared to other voice activated systems). So we thought it'd be a good idea to list all the different things you can say to Siri in the UK. This list is fairly definite, although we're skipping the comedy sayings in this one - this is a list for all the serious stuff you can say to Siri.
One thing to note is that Siri definitely improves the more you use it, and now that we've been using Siri for a while we've found it is starting to replace the interface for some basic tasks. Once you get into Siri you realise just how useful and powerful it is.
Siri also learns names quickly, if you keep repeating them and selecting the correct option from a list. So with just a bit of practice you quickly hurdle the frustration of it attemptint to text, message, or call the wrong person. And if you have relationships added 'mum', 'dad', 'partner' and so on, it quickly feels a lot less formal.
Here's our list of Siri things to say in the UK, we will update this with more information as time goes on.
Ask Siri about: Maps
Direct me home
Show me work
Find Sheffield
Show me local traffic
Show me the Statue Of Liberty
Find pizza near me
Where am I?
Get me directions from Leeds to Doncaster
Are we there yet
Find a petrol station near me
Find a supermarket along the route
Find a coffee shop near work
Find me a bar near home
Find a movie theatre in London
What’s the best restuarant near me
Ask Siri about: Stocks
What is Apple’s stock price
What is Apple’s P/E ratio
What is Google’s 52 week high
What is Microsoft’s market cap
Compare Apple to Google
Ask Siri about: Places
Find Trafalgar Square
Where is New York
Find a Restauarant near me
Where’s the best bar
I’m hungry
Ask Siri about: Social Media
Send a Tweet
Tell Facebook
Note: You can’t include Share this web page on Twitter or Post this page to Facebook
Ask Siri about: Safari
Search for BBC News
Bing for elephants
Search Google for images of cats
Ask Siri about: The Weather
What's the weather like
What's the weather like in Barcelona
What will the weather be this Sunday
Is it going to rain this weekend
What's the weather report in Berlin tomorrow
Ask Siri about: Movies
What movies are on
What’s the best new movie
Show me reviews for Batman Dark Knight Rises
Where can I watch Skyfall movie
Which movie won best picture last year?
Ask Siri about: Apps
Play Angry Birds
Open things
What you can’t do: Delete apps, move apps, go to the Home Screen
Ask Siri about: Messages
Send a text to Jane
Send a message to Karen Haslam and Ashleigh Allsopp
Tell my wife I’m running late
Reply I’m just testing out Siri
Read my new messages
Ask Siri about: Email
Send an email to Jane
Say Hi to Mum in an email (hi is the subject matter).
Reply what are we doing for Christmas?
Email Kate and say “sorry I can’t make it this weekend”
Mail Mum and say “looking forward to seeing you at Christmas” with a subject “Christmas” (note if you say “a subject that says it puts the ‘that says’ into the Subject header).
Any email from Simon today
Did I get an email about football today (searches subject headers).
Reply with “are we going to meet up this weekend”
Ask Siri about: FaceTime
FaceTime Steven
FaceTime Dad’s iPhone
Ask Siri about: Find My Friends
Where is Dave?
Ask Siri about: Music
Skip track
Play songs by Abba
Play First Cut Is The Deepest
Play the Back to Black album
Play the next track, or “next”
Play some random music
Stop playing music
Say “Genius” to play similar songs
Ask Siri about: Sports
(Note: We hope you like Premiere league football. No Formula One, no Cricket, no rugby, no golf, yet)
Premiere league
When are the next Tottenham Hotspur matches?
When is the next Tottenham Hotspur match?
Note that it uses official names
Who is on the Manchester United team
Ask Siri about: Clocks and Alarms
Set an alarm for 7 o’clock
Change the 7 o’clock alarm to 7 30
Wake me up in 8 hours time
Turn the 7 o’clock alarm off
Turn all my alarms off
Delete the 6am alarm
Cancel all alarms
Switch off my morning alarms
Set a timer for five minutes
Cancel the timer
What time is it in Berlin?
What’s the date this Saturday?
How many days are in this month?
How many days till Christmas?
Ask Siri about: Contacts
Who is Simon Jary?
Find people called John
Dave Smith is my dad
Kate Smith is my mum
Louise Smith is my sister
Ask Siri about: Phone
Call my dad at home
Call Kate
Dial 020 555 555
Ask Siri about: Calendar
Meet with Simon at two o’clock
Meet with Kate at noon
Change my three o’clock meeting to two o’clock
Cancel my two o’clock meeting
Cancel my meeting with David
Move my four o’clock meeting to tomorrow
Create a meeting on
Meet with Mum and Dad on Christmas day
Create an event with my parents at Easter
Ask Siri about: General Knowledge
(Note: Siri uses Wolfram Alpha to provide stats and facts. Wolfram Alpha can answer questions related to mathematics, geography, chemistry, words and linguistics, units and measurements, and all kinds of things. Here is a good list of the types of information you'll find on Wolfram Alpha, which will also work in Siri). Interestingly the American version of Siri has an "Ask Wolfram" feature where you can specifically tell Siri that you're after Wolfram information, this doesn't seem to work in the UK yet.)
How many calories in an Banana
Calculate 20 multiplied by 13
What are the properties of gold
How may people live in Japan
How far is Mars from Venus
This is a pretty comprehensive list of things you can do in the UK so far, we may have missed the odd thing but we'll add to this list and go. If you've found any useful things that Siri can do that we've overlooked please let us know on twitter @macworlduk or add it to the comments.
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