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Question on Voice Commands

Ronpfid

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As I approach my upgrade time, I'm considering going to iphone this time, here is one thing I would love to know. Does the iphone have voice commands, an example of what I would really like.

A way to 'speak' a note or 'remember' type thing. Right now I have a blackberry, it has voice commands but they suck, you can say an app, like one called 'remember' which is a note app, then speak what you want it to translate to text. If it worked well, it would be great as you could be driving down the road and say remember, and tell it something so later you can read it and, well, remember :) Wondering if iphone has something like that, and if so, does it work well? The blackberry one is always going 'I did not understand' or it types some crazy thing from mis-interpretting what you said making it useless.

Thanks~!
Ron
 
???

I'm asking if iphones have voice commands, see my post above
 
The iPhone has Siri, which, while not perfect, is very good at translating (it does take some time getting used to how Siri hears words).
You can say things like "Remind me that _______," and Siri will ask you when you'd like to be reminded (you can say, "when I get home," or "tomorrow evening," etc.)

You can also add things to the notepad by saying "Note to self: _____" and it will store it there.

Siri also has a TON more options. You might want to check out this list of things you can say to Siri: How to Use Siri - Full list of Siri Commands for iPhone iPad Video
 
Cool, I wasn't sure if siri did that too.
Does it work well enough to use? Like if you say 'remind me' does it understand most of the time?
Thanks!
 
I've never had an issue with "remind me," but sometimes she will mistranslate.
I use her for my shopping list, and for some reason she doesn't understand "agave" and thinks I'm saying "agate bay". But when I see "agate bay" in my shopping list, I know it means agave lol.
 
I've never had an issue with "remind me," but sometimes she will mistranslate.
I use her for my shopping list, and for some reason she doesn't understand "agave" and thinks I'm saying "agate bay". But when I see "agate bay" in my shopping list, I know it means agave lol.
OMG. That made me laugh. The last time Siri misunderstood what I was saying I told her she was worthless and she told me my response sS not appropriate. I need to try your easy going approach, maybe our relationship will improve. But Ronfid, don't let me discourage you, Sifi is usually pretty good and when I am tired it brings out my long repressed drawl and that's when we spar. Usually Siri works so well I even have had Android friends wanting to find a version for their phones. If you knew me you would expect my Siri to be snarky.
 
Thanks for the info :)

Glad you edited your post, I was going to ask what ' if you knew me you wore pectoral my Siri to be snarky.' meant lol
 
Thanks for the info :)

Glad you edited your post, I was going to ask what ' if you knew me you wore pectoral my Siri to be snarky.' meant lol
Auto-correct strikes again. Hoping when my new phone comes the text will be easier for me to read.
 
Here's another question,

If you flip that little switch on the side to silence an iPhone, will it still vibrate, light up, and show notifications when an email or text comes in?
 
Here's another question,

If you flip that little switch on the side to silence an iPhone, will it still vibrate, light up, and show notifications when an email or text comes in?
Op-ed: iOS 6’s Do Not Disturb and the ring/silent switch
The confusing state of affairs surrounding iPhone silencing.
by Iljitsch van Beijnum - Sept 25 2012, 12:05pm CDT

96
None of the Nokia phones I owned before I got my first iPhone had a ring/silent switch. If you wanted to silence them, you had to go into a menu and tell the phone to be silent. The switch seemed like an obvious improvement: with it, you could silence your phone without even taking it out of your pocket. But an actual old-school switch that is moved between two different positions also has a big fat downside: you can't really set the same function in software, because then the behavior of the phone no longer complies with the position of the switch.

iphone-rs-switch.jpg

The iPhone 4's ring/silent switch.
And so it was with the iPhone for five years. Yet with iOS 6, Apple gave us a way to silence our iPhones through a menu, and program the function to activate and deactivate at designated times. As such, the irresistible force (software programmability) met the immovable object(switch position/behavior parity).

Apple simply sidesteps this by retaining the ring/silent switch functionality as-is, and adding "do not disturb" as a completely separate function. And yes, R/S and DND really do perform different functions. Look closely at the names to divine the difference. With the switch in the silent position, the phone won't generate any sound. (With some exceptions, see below.) And "do not disturb" makes sure the phone doesn't disturb you.

In "regular" silent mode, the screen is still fair game. When there's an incoming phone call, the screen lights up, and you can take or ignore the call as usual, except the people around you are spared from having to listen to your favorite ringtone. It's the same with other kinds of notifications: the screen comes on, and unless you changed the "vibrate on silent" setting to off, the phone also vibrates to catch your attention. If that happens a lot throughout the night, an iPhone on your nightstand could certainly interfere with a good night's sleep.

iphone-dnd.jpg

Things are very different with "do not disturb." If you get a call when DND is in effect, the call is sent straight to voicemail. The screen doesn't come on, the phone doesn't vibrate, there is no sound. Same thing with notifications. (Well, they don't go to voicemail.)

However, there is one tiny little exception to this undisturbed bliss: if the screen is unlocked, none of the above applies: calls come through and notifications notify, with all of the ringing and beeping and vibrating that this entails. In other words: the phone won't disturb you, because if the screen is unlocked, your attention is on the phone anyway. Your significant other sleeping next to you may still be disturbed by all of this, though.

So: does it make sense to have two separate features that kinda-sorta-but-not-really do the same thing?

Yes and no. There have been a few times when my iPhone woke me up in the middle of the night, and with DND automatically enabled around bed time, such an event is less likely to happen in the future. (Creating a ringtone that is just 30 seconds of silence and assigning that to that guy who kept calling me throughout the night also helped.) But being able to silence my phone without even taking it out of my pocket using the ring/silent switch is fast and discreet, so I'd hate to give that up. And with the DND exemption when the screen is on, there are cases where you might want to use both of them at the same time.

Still, I expect that the somewhat subtle differences between the DND and R/S switch behaviors will be lost on most iPhone users. The likely result will be that people will still be disturbed more than they like, or unintentionally miss calls and notifications.

Since notifications sound and calls ring when DND is in effect (with the phone unlocked so the screen is turned on), it comes off as counterintuitive and will lead to unpleasant surprises. And it's likely that a lot of people have no need to differentiate between R/S and DND. Having an option to make DND activate when the R/S switch is switched to silent would be nice.

Although having DND activate automatically at a scheduled time is a great feature, having it deactivate at a scheduled time isn't always ideal—for instance, when sleeping in during the weekend. Why not have an option to automatically deactivate "do not disturb," when you first unlock your phone in the morning? (We'll call this "autodisturb" for short.)

Last but not least, Apple hasn't addressed the issue of alarms. Unbeknownst to some, alarms still go off when the R/S switch is set to silent, and also in DND mode. I think that's probably the best choice, but it's not ideal: on the one hand, it's disruptive and embarrassing when an alarm goes off when attending a performance. But on the other hand, you don't want to oversleep because you accidentally left the R/S switch set to silent, or left DND on so alarms remain silent.

It's just too easy to forget that the phone is silenced, because over normal usage, there's nothing conspicuous to remind you. Yes, I know it's easy enough to turn my iPhone on its side and look for the little orange stripe that indicates it's in silent mode. But what if I forget to do that, too?

Despite arguments that the current behavior is correct or that it isn't, there is no way to make the embarrassing-interruption-versus-oversleeping issue magically go away. But it would be huge step in the right direction if the lock screen showed when alarms, reminders, and calendar alerts are scheduled to go off if the iPhone is in silent or DND mode. With the ability to slide and immediately go to the place where that alarm, reminder, or alert can be disabled, of course.

(Bonus tip: if you ever have a call at an inopportune moment, you can silence the ringer—with the call continuing to "ring" silently—by pressing the sleep/wake button or one of the volume buttons. Press the sleep/wake button twice to send the call to voicemail.)

So please, Apple, wake up and fix this for us.
 
Wow huge reply, so I think yes, you can flip the switch and the phone will still light up and show notifications?
 
Wow huge reply, so I think yes, you can flip the switch and the phone will still light up and show notifications?
Yep, unless you turn off "Vibrate on Silent" which is a toggle in Sounds
 
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