macOS Sierra: The Missing Manual

What to Say to Siri

Siri comes with a cheat sheet to help you learn her capabilities. To see it, open Siri but don’t say anything. After 5 seconds of silence, Siri begins displaying screen after screen of example commands, under the heading “Some things you can ask me.”

Or just open Siri and then say, “What can I say?” or “What can you do?” or “Help me!” The same cheat sheet appears.

Here are the general categories of things you can say to Siri:

• Opening apps. Even if you don’t learn to use Siri for anything else, for the love of Mike, learn this one.

  You can say, “Open Calendar” or “Play Angry Birds” or “Launch Calculator.”

  Result: The corresponding app opens instantly. It’s exactly the same as pressing the Home button, swiping across the screen until you find the app you’re looking for, and then tapping its icon—but without pressing the Home button, swiping across the screen until you find the app you’re looking for, and then tapping its icon.

  Tip

  You can also get apps by voice, with commands like “Search the App Store for time tracking” or “Download the Scrabble app.”

• Change your settings. You can make changes to certain basic settings just by speaking your request. You can say, for example, “Turn on Bluetooth,” “Turn off Wi-Fi,” “Turn on Do Not Disturb.”

  You can also make screen and speaker adjustments: “Make the screen brighter.” “Dim the screen.” “Turn on the screensaver.” Or volume adjustments: “Make the volume louder.” “Mute the sound.” “Make the speaker softer.”

  Result: Siri makes ...