How to turn on Siri for third-party apps in iOS 10
Apple made a big deal of third-party Siri integration when it introduced iOS 10 last year, but you may have noticed that you can't order your favorite apps around by default -- here's how to make it work.
First, open up the Settings app from the iOS home screen, then scroll down to the Siri menu option. Here's where Apple's been needlessly cryptic, as the next step is tapping on a vague "App Support" option.
The truth is that third-party Siri support is off by default, and has to be manually toggled on app-by-app for titles that support the technology. And there aren't many that do at this time. As you can see, on an iPad with over 100 apps installed very few are Siri-compatible, and the situation isn't much better on iPhones.
It can also take some extensive web searches to figure out what commands Siri will accept from which apps. One common trope, though, is that you have to mention an app by name. While saying "find men's fashion pins on Pinterest" will generate results, for example, just saying "find men's fashion pins" will not only fail to open Pinterest, but potentially create wacky consequences as Siri tries to interpret what you mean.
Some other potential commands include "get me an Uber/Lyft/etc. to..." for ride-sharing apps, "call [contact name] on Skype," or "send [dollar amount] to [contact] using PayPal/Cash/etc." In some cases it might just take experimentation to figure out which phrases will work.
First, open up the Settings app from the iOS home screen, then scroll down to the Siri menu option. Here's where Apple's been needlessly cryptic, as the next step is tapping on a vague "App Support" option.
The truth is that third-party Siri support is off by default, and has to be manually toggled on app-by-app for titles that support the technology. And there aren't many that do at this time. As you can see, on an iPad with over 100 apps installed very few are Siri-compatible, and the situation isn't much better on iPhones.
It can also take some extensive web searches to figure out what commands Siri will accept from which apps. One common trope, though, is that you have to mention an app by name. While saying "find men's fashion pins on Pinterest" will generate results, for example, just saying "find men's fashion pins" will not only fail to open Pinterest, but potentially create wacky consequences as Siri tries to interpret what you mean.
Some other potential commands include "get me an Uber/Lyft/etc. to..." for ride-sharing apps, "call [contact name] on Skype," or "send [dollar amount] to [contact] using PayPal/Cash/etc." In some cases it might just take experimentation to figure out which phrases will work.
Comments
Heck, just tell me how to turn it on to do something like play my music that is on my iphone when I don't have an internet conection.
"What is the GDP Per Capita of China and Mexico?"
"How many Pakistani rupees to one US dollar?"
"Is [insert celebrity name] still alive?"
Maybe they have too much "legacy" in the Siri underpinnings? No one likes their pet project to not get included in the final product, and without constant, end point, high level oversight the result can be the end product isn't as good as it could be and slower than it should be. Think x86 chips as an example. You need a tyrant like Jobs, or maybe Forstall, to get rid of the cludge.
The lack of progress in Siri's AI is a bit weird, as the voice recognition has improved a lot and is excellent. Just it still has trouble (or simply isn't able to) carry out anything but the most basic requests. A good example of Siri's capability is creating a calendar event. In one sentence you can get Siri to create an event with a time, date, location and title. It works great. Then other times you say "turn off the torch" and Siri replies with "that's beyond my abilities".
Apple frequently seems to add a major new feature with much fanfare, and then ignore it for years without update. In fact the Mac Pro comes to mind.
Echo Dot in kitchen - fantastic.
Sad.