Siri – one of the most intuitive steps taken by Apple, and it appeared first on iPhone 4S. It’s a voice-controlled personal assistant and a great accessibility feature when you can’t access your iPhone directly. Instead, you can activate Siri and tell him or her what to do.

Over the years, Siri has evolved a lot, and it’s available on every iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, HomePod, AirPods, and other Apple devices. 

How to activate Siri on iPhone 12, by the way? Let’s see how you can activate Siri, set it up, and instruct it to act in this guide.

How to Activate Siri on iPhone 12?

Hopefully, you are ready to get your hands on the voice-controlled accessibility feature, Siri on your new iPhone 12. Before you say, ‘Hey Siri’, make sure that Siri is activated. Otherwise, Siri won’t respond to your voice commands. 

Here’s how to activate Siri on iPhone 12:

  • Go to Settings on your iPhone 12.
  • Scroll down to locate the section named Siri & Search.
  • Tap on the option, and you need to enable the following 3 features to set Siri up:
    • Listen for ‘Hey Siri’
    • Press Side Button for Siri
    • Allow Siri When Locked

Enabling the ‘Listen for Hey Siri’ option will let you interact with Siri at any time. This means you need to say, ‘Hey Siri’ to start an interaction with Siri. On the other hand, the second option will permit you to wake Siri whenever you long-press the iPhone 12’s side or sleep/wake button.

The third option is quite interesting. You can command Siri even when your iPhone is locked with the third option enabled. Here’s how to activate Siri on iPhone 12, and you can apply it to all the variants in the iPhone 12 lineup.

Ways to Use Siri on Your iPhone 12

Interestingly, the use of Siri became more interactive with the advent of iOS 14. Before that, Siri used to consume the entire screen on your iPhone whenever you activated it. 

However, Siri now appears as a colourful bubble at the bottom of your iPhone 12’s screen. The bubble keeps animating while Siri is listening to what you’re saying or instructing.

After that, responses from Siri appear in the shape of a widget or banner according to the situation. Yet, it doesn’t take up much space. Are you curious to learn how you can use Siri? Probably, you have performed the previous setup. 

All you have to do is to say, ‘Hey Siri, ’ and Siri should wake up. Then, you can convey your message or command.

For example, you can ask Siri to send a message to someone or place a call. You can say, ‘Hey Siri, call [someone]’. Just replace [someone] with a valid contact while commanding Siri. 

Siri should complete that task or ask you for more information if the command seems to be incomplete.

Using Siri as an Intercom

Siri has come a long way, and we can say that it will still trend in the near future. After all, it’s competing hard against other voice-controlled personal assistants, such as Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant, and more. That’s why Apple has added interesting features to Siri.

One of them is the intercom feature. This functionality is available on every smart device from Apple, such as iPhones, Apple  Watches, iPads, CarPlay, HomePods, and AirPods. You can send your message or command to others connected to one of these Apple devices.

For instance, you have to say, ‘Hey Siri, tell everyone [and then, tell your message]’. Siri will transmit the message to every connected Apple device. On the other hand, recipients can also reply to the message you transmitted using Siri.

Recipients can see those intercom messages as notifications on iPhones and iPads if they are not played on AirPods and HomePods. Apart from the voice command of ‘Hey Siri’, iPhone 12 users can hold the Side or Sleep/Wake button to activate Siri. After that, they can tell Siri what to do.

On a contrary note, the Side button function for Siri is not similar for every iPhone. If your iPhone has a Home button, then long-pressing the Side button won’t bring up Siri. 

You need to press and hold the Home button on your older iPhone models to activate Siri. This applies to iPhone SE Second- and Third-Generation models, too.

Why can’t Siri Understand You?

Undoubtedly, Siri is a wonderful and creative way to interact. However, it’s quite common to come across mistakes with the daily use of Siri. 

Siri might not get what you’re asking for at once. After all, it’s a product of artificial intelligence, and it might not work with every accent.

How can you solve these communication gaps apart from how to activate Siri on iPhone 12? You can use a keyboard along with Siri to address such issues. 

Check out how you can enable the feature:

  • Navigate to Settings and scroll down until you find out Accessibility.
  • Tap on Accessibility and select Siri from the available options.
  • Turn on the option named ‘Type to Siri’.

From now on, you can easily activate Siri on your iPhone 12 with button or voice controls. Then, you can type in the request or question rather than speak. Try this if you feel uncomfortable with Siri in your initial days.

As an alternative, you can personalise Siri’s voice and match it with an accent that you are used to. You can even set it to a male or female voice for American, Indian, Australian, Irish, South African, and Irish accents. 

Here’s how you can customise Siri on iPhone 12:

  • Navigate to Siri & Search after entering Settings.
  • Tap on Siri Voice so that you can select the right voice.
  • Next, select the language or accent that you are most comfortable with.

Recent Improvements to Siri

How to activate Siri on iPhone 12? You got the answer, and Siri is packed with more intuitive features. iOS 14 introduced Siri to us with smarter answers, better suggestions, voice messaging, appropriate translation, and more. On the other hand, changes in Siri’s mechanism sound more brilliant with the promised features of iOS 16.

For instance, you can now ask Siri to include an emoji in your message and send it right away with the message. Just be specific about the emoji or character and say ‘emoji’ for better understanding. Hang up a call with Siri when you are in the middle of a hands-free conversation.

Now, iPhone 12 users can explore more possibilities of a particular app using Siri. Just ask Siri, ‘Hey Siri, what can I do here?’. Siri will show all the suggestions and that’s a great guide, we assume. iOS 16 brings more advanced features for dictation. Siri will add necessary punctuation whenever required.

To avail of these exciting features, iPhone 12 users should update their devices to iOS 16.

How does Siri Make a Difference?

Siri offers incredible features and assistance for hands-free access to your iPhone. Siri simplifies your tasks on a daily basis. However, Siri can’t help you make decisions. 

Other than that, Siri is a really powerful tool that you should try. Hopefully, you find the guide useful regarding how to activate Siri on iPhone 12.