How to turn on Siri for third-party apps in iOS 10

Posted:
in iPhone edited January 2017
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.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 18
    scottkrk2 said:
    Amazon, Google and even Microsoft are eating Apple's lunch with AI.

    The only thing SIrii is good for is opening the Google App on my iPhone.

    So sad that Apple's lead in AI evaporated so quickly.....
    Eh. As I mentioned, Apple has been working on this a very long time, before any of their would-be competitors were even a thought.
  • Reply 2 of 18
    "How to turn on Siri for third-party apps in iOS 10"
    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.
    jahblade
  • Reply 3 of 18
    Siri is often frustrating but still quite useful and I use it many times every day from opening apps to doing general web queries to asking questions like:

    "What is the GDP Per Capita of China and Mexico?"

    "How many Pakistani rupees to one US dollar?"

    "Is [insert celebrity name] still alive?"



  • Reply 4 of 18
    entropysentropys Posts: 4,152member
    scottkrk2 said:
    Amazon, Google and even Microsoft are eating Apple's lunch with AI.

    The only thing SIrii is good for is opening the Google App on my iPhone.

    So sad that Apple's lead in AI evaporated so quickly.....
    Eh. As I mentioned, Apple has been working on this a very long time, before any of their would-be competitors were even a thought.
    This is true. It is also true that it hasn't helped Apple stay ahead.
    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.
    edited January 2017 neo-tech
  • Reply 5 of 18
    tokyojimu said:
    Siri is often frustrating but still quite useful and I use it many times every day from opening apps to doing general web queries to asking questions like:

    "What is the GDP Per Capita of China and Mexico?"

    "How many Pakistani rupees to one US dollar?"

    "Is [insert celebrity name] still alive?"



    Yeah. It'd be great if you could use it on "Jeopardy", but you can't. So....
  • Reply 6 of 18
    scottkrk2 said:
    Amazon, Google and even Microsoft are eating Apple's lunch with AI.

    The only thing SIrii is good for is opening the Google App on my iPhone.

    So sad that Apple's lead in AI evaporated so quickly.....
    Eh. As I mentioned, Apple has been working on this a very long time, before any of their would-be competitors were even a thought.
    Eh. So what? Apple working a long time on this is the excuse for competitors stealing the show in voice recognition and so called "AI" on multiple platforms and devices?
    neo-techasdasd
  • Reply 7 of 18
    Is there anybody who can tall whether Apple focus on security somehow hampers Siri functionality compare to other assistants?
  • Reply 8 of 18
    Here is Viber and Siri https://support.viber.com/customer/en/portal/articles/2560340-siri-and-viber Only thing that does not work for me is tapping on Siri created message. It only open Viber but not message I created. Message "name" using Viber. It creates message and wait for input. Tapping it open Viber in message list. In Apple Messages it open that create message. Why would I want to do that? Because of need to dictate in other, unsupported, language. But I may be Apple fault because it does not work in Telegram either.
  • Reply 9 of 18
    scottkrk2 said:
    Amazon, Google and even Microsoft are eating Apple's lunch with AI.

    The only thing SIrii is good for is opening the Google App on my iPhone.

    So sad that Apple's lead in AI evaporated so quickly.....
    Eh. As I mentioned, Apple has been working on this a very long time, before any of their would-be competitors were even a thought.
    And restricted the heck out of Siri when they bought it. That's why Siri's  makers left and created Viv.
  • Reply 10 of 18
    StrangeDaysStrangeDays Posts: 12,844member
    neo-tech said:
    scottkrk2 said:
    Amazon, Google and even Microsoft are eating Apple's lunch with AI.

    The only thing SIrii is good for is opening the Google App on my iPhone.

    So sad that Apple's lead in AI evaporated so quickly.....
    Eh. As I mentioned, Apple has been working on this a very long time, before any of their would-be competitors were even a thought.
    And restricted the heck out of Siri when they bought it. That's why Siri's  makers left and created Viv.
    We don't actually know, it was a rumor story. It could be they didn't like not being their own bosses. Or wanted to make another boatload of money selling to Samsung. Or anything.
  • Reply 11 of 18
    elijahgelijahg Posts: 2,753member
    It seems like Apple's gradually adding back functionality that was stripped out when they bought Siri. 

    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. 
  • Reply 12 of 18
    Disabled Siri on the desktop, disabled on phone - useless.

    Echo Dot in kitchen - fantastic.

    Sad.
  • Reply 13 of 18
    I asked Siri, "What planet are we on?", and she brought up a list of Planet Of The Apes movies and started reading them off one by one.  Sigh...
  • Reply 14 of 18
    Siri is nearly useless as-is, except for calling or texting in-car.
  • Reply 15 of 18
    Mikeymike said:
    "How to turn on Siri for third-party apps in iOS 10"
    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.
    If your iPhone doesn't have an internet connection, you're doing iPhone wrong.
  • Reply 16 of 18
    williamhwilliamh Posts: 1,032member
    scottkrk2 said:
    Amazon, Google and even Microsoft are eating Apple's lunch with AI, so sad that Apple's lead in AI evaporated so quickly.....

    Another example of losing talented people, from memory the original Siri people went to Samsung, ?

    The only thing I use SIrii for is opening the Google App on my iPhone and it is disabled on the desktop.



    I agree it's not as useful as it should be. I use it for starting timers for exercise and cooking. 
  • Reply 17 of 18
    williamh said:
    I agree it's not as useful as it should be. I use it for starting timers for exercise and cooking. 
    Be careful with that, otherwise your squat thrusts will be converted to Hefners per cubic liter.

  • Reply 18 of 18
    PauldavidPauldavid Posts: 1unconfirmed, member
    I don’t what the option ‘app support’ in siri&search menu. Does anyone know why? 
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