How to create location based reminders with Siri in iOS 9
With Apple's addition of proactive Siri features in iOS 9, users have an even more intuitive and flexible interface from which to quickly create location based reminders.
Some of the most useful reminders are those set to trigger an alert when a user enters into or exits out of a regularly visited area, like home or work. To take full advantage of location based Siri reminders, you first need to grant Siri access to iPhone's positioning sensors.
Navigate to Settings > Privacy, switch Location Services to the on position and set Reminders > While Using the App. It should be noted that this option will only appear after granting the Reminders app access to Location Services, a task most easily accomplished by creating a new location-based reminder in-app.
The next step is to establish geofences around your home and work addresses. Find your card in Contacts (usually at the top of the page), tap on Edit in the upper right corner and enter in both a home and work address. Confirm integration by asking Siri, "Where do I live?" and "Where do I work?."
You can now request Siri to set location specific reminders like, "Remind me to take in my books when I get home." Siri has hooks into other apps, allowing for content attachments. For example, asking Siri to "Remember this when I get home" while browsing the Web in Safari, that specific page will be attached to an alert triggered when you arrive at your house.
With Siri being more proactive it's more likely that the virtual assistant will return answers for generic queries. For example, I was driving through a small town and wanted to remind myself to make a stop at a friends house on the return trip a few hours later. As I was passing by this person's house, I activated Siri and said, "Remind me when I'm here to go by (my friend's) house."
Siri said, "Ok, I'll remind you," and inserted the address of my current location onscreen.
When I entered the geofenced area a few hours later, the iPhone threw up a reminder to "go by." Siri was able to interpret "here" as my current location and set up a geofenced reminder automatically.
In addition, Siri can create reminders for points of interest surfaced through Internet searches. For example, asking, "Remind me to try that new sandwich when I arrive at McDonalds," will will most likely elicit the response, "Which McDonalds?" and an onscreen list of nearby locations.
With Family Sharing, you can also set location based reminders with members of your family sharing using Siri. You simply ask Siri for example to, "Set a family reminder to call and let Mom know I'm safe when arriving home." This will put a reminder on any shared family member's phone for when they arrive home.
You can set up Family Sharing on your iPhone with up to six family members who share the same billing address. If not already active, go to Settings > iCloud > Set Up Family Sharing > Get Started and confirm that you want to be the organizer of the family. When you go into the Reminders app, you have an entire category named, "Family."
All reminders created with Siri can be found, modified and deleted in the Reminders app.
Some of the most useful reminders are those set to trigger an alert when a user enters into or exits out of a regularly visited area, like home or work. To take full advantage of location based Siri reminders, you first need to grant Siri access to iPhone's positioning sensors.
Navigate to Settings > Privacy, switch Location Services to the on position and set Reminders > While Using the App. It should be noted that this option will only appear after granting the Reminders app access to Location Services, a task most easily accomplished by creating a new location-based reminder in-app.
The next step is to establish geofences around your home and work addresses. Find your card in Contacts (usually at the top of the page), tap on Edit in the upper right corner and enter in both a home and work address. Confirm integration by asking Siri, "Where do I live?" and "Where do I work?."
You can now request Siri to set location specific reminders like, "Remind me to take in my books when I get home." Siri has hooks into other apps, allowing for content attachments. For example, asking Siri to "Remember this when I get home" while browsing the Web in Safari, that specific page will be attached to an alert triggered when you arrive at your house.
With Siri being more proactive it's more likely that the virtual assistant will return answers for generic queries. For example, I was driving through a small town and wanted to remind myself to make a stop at a friends house on the return trip a few hours later. As I was passing by this person's house, I activated Siri and said, "Remind me when I'm here to go by (my friend's) house."
Siri said, "Ok, I'll remind you," and inserted the address of my current location onscreen.
When I entered the geofenced area a few hours later, the iPhone threw up a reminder to "go by." Siri was able to interpret "here" as my current location and set up a geofenced reminder automatically.
In addition, Siri can create reminders for points of interest surfaced through Internet searches. For example, asking, "Remind me to try that new sandwich when I arrive at McDonalds," will will most likely elicit the response, "Which McDonalds?" and an onscreen list of nearby locations.
With Family Sharing, you can also set location based reminders with members of your family sharing using Siri. You simply ask Siri for example to, "Set a family reminder to call and let Mom know I'm safe when arriving home." This will put a reminder on any shared family member's phone for when they arrive home.
You can set up Family Sharing on your iPhone with up to six family members who share the same billing address. If not already active, go to Settings > iCloud > Set Up Family Sharing > Get Started and confirm that you want to be the organizer of the family. When you go into the Reminders app, you have an entire category named, "Family."
All reminders created with Siri can be found, modified and deleted in the Reminders app.
Comments
iPhone 6S, iOS 9.1 Reminders does not exist under Privacy -> Location Services.
Does in mine (6, 9.0.2), your iPhone is messed up.
No such setting on my phone, either (iOS 9.0.2, iPhone 5s), and I restored mine to factory settings recently. Sounds like a lot of phones out there are "messed up" — or these are incomplete instructions.
I had to first create a location-based reminder in the Reminders app, turning on the "Remind me at a location" switch. When I selected a location, I got a prompt asking whether I wanted Reminders to have access. I tapped "While using," and only after that did Reminders appear in Settings -> Privacy -> Location services.
Thanks for the assist Mgrad92
iPhone 5S 32GB, iOS 9.0.2 Reminders does not exist under Privacy -> Location Services.
If you expect to find accuracy here, you're expecting it wrong¡
This option will appear in Settings > Privacy after granting Reminders access to Location Services. The article has been duly updated.
This option will appear in Settings > Privacy after granting Reminders access to Location Services. The article has been duly updated.
Excellent! Though it was already enabled at my end and still not visible as the article states.
Thanks Mikey!
http://iphone.appleinsider.com/articles/11/06/07/inside_apples_ios_5_reminders_app_offers_location_aware_to_do_lists/
http://www.macworld.com/article/1164792/how_to_use_the_ios_reminders_app.html
http://www.macworld.com/article/1164792/how_to_use_the_ios_reminders_app.html[/quote]
From the very first sentence of this article: "With Apple's addition of proactive Siri features in iOS 9, users have an even more intuitive and flexible interface from which to quickly create location based reminders."
It isn't about using Siri to add reminders, it's about Siri's increased understanding.
From the very first sentence of this article: "With Apple's addition of proactive Siri features in iOS 9, users have an even more intuitive and flexible interface from which to quickly create location based reminders."
It isn't about using Siri to add reminders, it's about Siri's increased understanding.
I suppose, but it's really not that much more "intuitive". I've been creating the exact same reminders for ages using "remind me when I [arrive at] work to call home". So all they really did is allow you to use "get to" instead of "arrive at".
I have used this feature but it doesn't work very well. It sometimes delays the reminder a couple minutes from when it should have triggered. Sometimes it doesn't work at all. In the example above it probably wouldn't matter if it was delayed because you will be at the office for awhile. If you are looking for precision don't rely on it.
Things that don't work:
Remind me when I get to the grocery store to take along my reusable grocery bags. You'll be in the store with your cart half full before the reminder comes in.
Remind me to take my umbrella when I leave home. You'll be a couple miles down the road when it triggers.
Remind me when I get to Home Depot to pay my bill. Siri: Which home for mstone?
I have used this feature but it doesn't work very well. It sometimes delays the reminder a couple minutes from when it should have triggered. Sometimes it doesn't work at all. In the example above it probably wouldn't matter if it was delayed because you will be at the office for awhile. If you are looking for precision don't rely on it.
Things that don't work:
Remind me when I get to the grocery store to take along my reusable grocery bags. You'll be in the store with your cart half full before the reminder comes in.
Remind me to take my umbrella when I leave home. You'll be a couple miles down the road when it triggers.
Remind me when I get to Home Depot to pay my bill. Siri: Which home for mstone?
Same here, so I stopped trying to bother with it. I can understand the umbrella situation, as you're leaving a location. But when I ask to be reminded after I get home (yes, Siri knows where I live) I never get reminded. And that may be delayed as this thing isn't going to do all this 'live' (hence your umbrella example) but when I get to a place and stay there for hours on end, I'd like to get that reminder.
As to your last example; don't you own 3 houses, making Siri pop that question to you?
Best,
Phil
Wait, wasn’t this in iOS 8?
Wait, wasn’t this in iOS 8?
8? It's 3 years old!
http://9to5mac.com/2012/08/17/googlemotorola-claims-apple-infringes-seven-patents-relate-to-siri-location-based-reminders/
My father got his first iPad (basically his first meaningful computer since the early 1990s) a few days ago and said both, “I feel like a caveman standing erect for the first time, coming out of his cave with a magical device saying, ‘Look what I found!’” and “I mean, look, how are we supposed to know what to do here? Is there a manual or something in here?” Me: “It used to come with an accordion fold pamphlet that showed you what was what and how to do things, but it’s just a card now, see?” “Well, that’s... you see what I’m saying? I just don’t want to break it...”
I ran him through the basics and showed him how to access and use the newest iPad User Guide in iBooks, so that should help. But Apple doesn’t advertise the existence of such a user guide in the first place! Laymen can’t learn that the iPad isn’t like other technology that they could screw up if they did the “wrong” thing if Apple doesn’t show them it’s like that.
Good. Now I don’t have add another reason that I was found dead to my list of things my brain is either unable to or falsely remembers.
But I also vaguely remember it not actually ever working before. “Remind me when I get home” and “Remind me when I come back here” never actually did so...