Send Messages

You’re in the car and need to tell your spouse you forgot a critical ingredient for tonight’s dinner. Do you pull over to dash off a text? Do you attempt to text at the next red light? Neither is a good option when Siri can help you compose SMS and iMessages without taking your eyes off of the road. Siri can send, read, respond, and search for messages in the Messages app on your iPhone, iPad, Mac, and HomePod (if you’ve turned on Personal Requests). New as of iOS 14 and iPad OS 14, Siri can now send audio messages, too.

When to Use What: Text or Email?

Use Messages when you have a brief message that you need someone to see right away, but be aware that text messages used for business are often considered intrusive. Use email if you have a lot to say, your timeline is longer, you need to keep a record of your correspondence, or you don’t know the person well. You might also use email if it’s late at night or very early in the morning, in case the person has forgotten to turn notifications off. Which device you have closest at hand makes a difference, too—Siri can help you send email only with your iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and Mac.

Send a Message

To send a message, say “Send a message to phone number” or “Text phone number.” (You must include all 10 digits.) If a recipient’s info is in Contacts, tell Siri “Send a message to name” or “Text name.” Siri creates a new message and waits for your words—you don’t have to activate it again.

If there’s more than one person by that name in Contacts, Siri asks which one to message. Say their full name to specify. Or, make this clear in your original request by saying something like “Message Dave McFarland.” If you’ve included relationship information in Contacts (see Give Siri the Information It Needs), you can tell Siri “Message my spouse” or “Text my boss.”

Speed things up by including the text of your message along with your original request. For example, say: “Hey Siri, send a message to Graham I’ll pick you up after mock trial around 7:30” (Figure 55).

Figure 55: To speed things up, skip the back and forth with Siri and include the message body with your request.

Send to Multiple People

Send a message to more than one person by including their names in your request, separated by the word “and.” For example, say “Text Jon and Dave and Ariel.” Note that this works perfectly if all potential participants use Apple devices or all of them (except you) use Android or other devices, but you’ll run into trouble if there’s a mix of the two. (See Annoying Problems with Siri and Group Texts.)

If you text with a group of people regularly and all members use Apple devices, make it easier to send messages using Siri by naming the group. Open Messages on your iOS/iPadOS device and find (or start) a message that includes all members. Tap the top of the conversation, and then tap the info icon. Tap “Change Name and Photo,” tap “Enter a Group Name,” and then type one in. You can also pick an icon for the group. Once that’s done, you can tell Siri “Text group name” (Figure 56).

Figure 56: Give a group a name to make it even easier to text everyone using Siri. Note that this works only if everyone in the group uses Apple devices.

Annoying Problems with Siri and Group Texts

If you have trouble naming a group or getting Siri to add people to a group, it’s probably because some potential participants aren’t using Apple devices. The problem is a difference of technology behind the scenes. Your iPhone can send two types of messages:

• iMessages: These messages are compatible only with other Apple devices and appear as blue speech bubbles in Messages.

• SMS/MMS: These messages are compatible with Apple devices and other types of cell phones, like Android; they appear as green speech bubbles in Messages.

If anyone in your group uses a non-Apple phone, the group must text using SMS/MMS. That means the group can’t be named. It also leads to unpredictable results when you try to create a group using Siri. For instance, after you tell Siri who to send the message to, only one person using SMS/MMS and one person using iMessage may end up appearing in the list.

Review and Make Changes

After you’re done, Siri asks “Ready to send it?” If you want to make sure Siri got the text of your message right, say “Review it.” Siri reads the message back to you and then asks again if you’re ready to send. If the message was mangled, say “Change it” and Siri gives you another chance to dictate the message. Once you’re satisfied, when Siri asks if you’re ready to send the message, say yes. (Or, say no to cancel.)

Tip: Use WhatsApp with some friends instead of Messages? Now you can use Siri with it, too. Try: “Message Dave ‘I’m on my way’ on WhatsApp.”

Send an Audio Message

Whether your message requires the subtle nuance only tone of voice can express or you’re just in a hurry, sometimes audio trumps text. How handy it is, then, that as of iOS 14 and iPadOS 14, you can use Siri to send audio messages, too.

Say “Send audio message to name.” Siri says “OK, recording.” Speak, sing, whisper, or shout your message and then pause to show you’re done. Siri asks if you’re ready to send (Figure 57). If you are, say “Send” or “Yes.” If not, say “Cancel.”

Figure 57: Now you can use Siri to send audio messages from your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.

Read Your Messages

To catch up on messages, say “Read my new messages” or “Read messages.” Siri reads aloud any unread ones. (No transcript appears on your screen.) “Read recent messages” works, too.

You can also specify whose messages you want to hear. For example: “Read recent messages from Graham” (Figure 58).

Figure 58: Specify whose messages you want to hear when you ask Siri to read them to you.

Tip: AirPods give you another option for listening to your messages and replying hands free. See Announce Incoming Messages on AirPods (and More).

Reply to a Message

After Siri reads the message, it asks if you want to reply. Say yes and then dictate your message. If you pause too long, Siri cancels the action and you must start over.