Kurt "They Cyberguy" Knutsson explains easier ways get Siri to listen to you on your iPhone. Do you ever wish that you could activate Siri without having to say "Hey" first every time? Our favorite virtual assistant on Apple devices got a much-needed upgrade with iOS 17. CLICK TO GET KURT'S FREE CYBERGUY NEWSLETTER WITH SECURITY ALERTS, QUICK TIPS, TECH REVIEWS, AND EASY HOW-TO'S TO MAKE YOU SMARTER How to use Siri without saying "Hey" with iOS 17 update -safari () With iOS 17, you can also now finally make back-to-back requests without needing to say "Siri" again and again when you want something. How to use Siri without saying "Hey" with iOS 17 update -safari () While we're calling out to Siri, here is a useful new tip to read an article out loud for you that you can ask her to do.

Kurt "The CyberGuy" Knutsson explains five great accessibility features on your Apple iPhone. If you have an iPhone, you probably know about the helpful function of "Siri," or your Apple virtual assistant. Depending on how you set up your phone, if you hold down the side button (or home button if your model has one) or say "Hey Siri," you'll easily activate the feature. CLICK TO GET KURT'S FREE CYBERGUY NEWSLETTER WITH SECURITY ALERTS, QUICK TIPS, TECH REVIEWS AND EASY HOW-TO'S TO MAKE YOU SMARTER You may use Siri to call friends or family, send texts, and maybe you occasionally ask a question. However, did you know about these 10 super-helpful features?

I came into the kitchen recently to find my husband cradling our electricity smart meter with the kind of tender attention more usually directed to a new-born, his phone clutched in his free hand. "You didn't turn your office heater off last night," he said. I went in this morning to turn it on again!" "Last night we used 10…" (here he added a unit, presumably of electricity, but all that stuff is Martian to me. "It shouldn't be that high." "But I turned it off!" But our smart home had spoken and it is far more reliable than me, his life partner of 26 years. Our house now has app-enabled devices to control the heating and the boiler remotely, to check temperature, CO2 and noise levels and to see who is at the door. There are motion-detector cameras in the garden that send us videos of foxes threatening my hens, or his tortoises escaping. Since we installed a few solar panels, my husband's smart-home management has become more urgent and more granular. An app tells him how much we are consuming, but also how much we are producing, in real time. Now he bursts in when it's sunny, shouting "We're giving electricity to the grid!

Apple is utilizing some of Siri's smarts to put an end to spam calls. The tech giant unveiled a new feature in its latest mobile software, iOS 13, called'Silence unknown callers' that should make it more difficult for spammers to reach you. Now, when a spammer calls your phone, Siri will automatically route them to voicemail. The tech giant unveiled a new feature in its latest mobile software, iOS 13, called'Silence unknown callers' that should make it more difficult for spammers to reach you The feature was debuted on Monday at Apple's annual Worldwide Developer Conference, where the firm also rolled out a new Mac Pro and Pro display, software updates for the iPhone, iPad, Mac and Watch, as well as other new features. With'Silence unknown callers,' Apple's digital assistant will scan your incoming calls for spammers and unknown numbers so that you don't have to.

Not all voice assistants can handle the same requests. We put Siri, Alexa and Google to the test. LOS ANGELES – When you pose the simplest of questions to Siri and it can't answer "what's 1% of $1 million," yet Amazon Alexa and the Google Assistant can, you know just how far behind Apple's assistant has fallen to rivals. Siri was the first voice assistant, announced in 2011 for the iPhone 4S, but over the past several years, Amazon and Google have rolled over it, by investing heavily and introducing many new features, while Siri "hasn't moved forward much," says Bret Kinsella, who runs the Voicebot.ai Apple traditionally takes center stage at its Worldwide Developer's Conference (WWDC) to unveil new software features to whet app makers' appetites, and often they involve Siri.

Siri just doesn't know when to keep quiet. A security flaw in Apple's digital assistant makes it so that users can easily send a message or make a phone call on someone else's locked device, according to Quartz. All users need to do is take advantage of the'Hey Siri' feature, which activates the digital assistant once those wake words are spoken. Siri just doesn't know when to keep quiet. A security flaw in Apple's digital assistant makes it so that users can easily send a message or make a phone call on someone else's device Apple offers Siri on every iPhone released after the iPhone 6S, which was launched in September 2015.

Apple's annual developer conference, WWDC, kicks off on Monday in San Jose, California. We'll get a first look at the newest updates in store for the iPhone, Apple Watch, Mac, and other Apple products. We're not expecting much in terms of whizz-bang feature announcements this year; the company has reportedly decided to take a step back and hone its existing software offerings. However, we'll still see improvements to Apple's operating systems. Apple would be smart to give Siri priority among its consumer-facing updates.

But there's no need to worry. The speaker is coming into a market full of competitors – plenty of which do the same thing. So if you now have a rounded, bin-shaped hole under your Christmas tree, you can replace it with another voice-enabled speaker. The HomePod boasts of a huge range of features: beautiful sound, a small, beautiful build, and the ability to control it all with your voice. Not all of those features can be replaced – but some of them can be.

The iPhone has been my primary smartphone for well over a decade, and therefore I've had Siri on my phone ever since its introduction in 2011. But I never really found a reason to use it. I've always felt self-conscious when talking to my phone -- I find people who use voice commands in public really annoying -- so I wanted to avoid doing it myself. I have Bluetooth in my car so I don't have to use my phone while driving, and when I'm at home, I have my trusty fingers instead. So I imagined that being forced to use Siri for a whole week was going to be a nightmare.

A four-year-old boy saved his mother's life by using her thumb to unlock her iPhone and then asking it to call 999. Roman, who lives in Kenley, Croydon, south London, used the phone's voice control - Siri - to call emergency services. Police and paramedics were sent to the home and were able to give live-saving first aid to his mother. During the 999 call Roman told the operator he thought his mum was dead because "she's closing her eyes and she's not breathing". Roman, his twin brother and a younger brother were all in the house at the time.