What are the top 3 tricks Siri learned with iOS 16?

Launched in 2020 at WWDC Translate can translate conversations privately.

Apple taught Siri several new and useful tricks when it introduced iOS 16. The following three are the ones I’ve made most use of.

Better calling

It seems weird now but until iOS 16 you couldn’t ask Siri to hang up a call for you. Today all you need to say is “Hey Siri, hang up,” to end the chat, though whoever is on the call will hear you.

The feature works on iPhone 11 or later, and also works on older Face ID devices so long as you’re using AirPods. You do need to enable the feature in Siri & Search, were you flick Call Hang Up to on.

Siri can also answer and decline your incoming calls.

Restart your iPhone

Easier than learning a button sequence you can now ask Siri to restart your iPhone when the device is unlocked. You’ll be asked to confirm the instruction when you can simly tap the button or say “Restart”.

What can you do?

Siri has been able to tell you some of the things it can do for some time, but this has now become a little more granular, by which I mean you can now find out what Siri actions work from within any app.

To take a look, open any app that supports this and then invoke Siri and say, “What can I do here?”, you’ll be treated with a short list of ideas and a button to take you some more. If there aren’t any commands available, you’ll be given a set of more generic Siri actions.

NB: I am sometimes disappointed at those apps that don’t offer good tips or Siri tricks.

Oh, and one more thing – perhaps one day you won’t even need to say “Hey”, just “Siri”. That will be fun of games when your dog’s called Susie.

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