The utility I use the most on my iPhone is the calculator. I use it often to reconcile my checkbook, calculate discounts in the store, and more. but when I use the iPhone's calculator to add up a list of numbers, it doesn't offer a record of what I input, so I don't know if I made an error tapping numbers in.
It took me over a year to get in the habit of using Siri, partly because she seemed so human-like. I was worried I'd say something dumb. One day I finally got it: there ain't no one listening. And ever since then I've used Siri with abandon. Lately I was surprised to discover that Siri offers a helpful guide to what you can say or ask.
By Paula Bostrom
Why would you go to the trouble of opening your Music app and manually selecting the music you want when Siri can play tracks, albums, and entires genres for you? You can even pause the music or skip at track.
By Todd Bernhard
Siri can be quite useful, but if you really want a "Jarvis" kind of experience, like Tony Stark in Iron Man, you need to be able to interact with Siri without touching a button. Fortunately, iOS 8 makes this possible.
Everyone likes movies. And no one likes wasting time on the lousy ones. So no doubt you check out the reviews to see what people are saying about it. Siri can help. Siri will not only let you find out what's playing at local theaters and play the trailer, but will also tell you how a movie is rated.
I'm continually amazed at how useful Siri is to control the various functions of my iPad. I often use it to set an alarm or a timer. Doing so is so much faster than interacting with the Clock app itself. You can also use Siri to tell you the time and date, as well as the time at a specific location around the world. And you can ask Siri to tell you the date for a particular day of the week.
By Jim Karpen
If you own stocks or have an interest in how the market is doing, you can use Siri to check current stock prices. In addition, you can compare performance, ask more general questions about how the market is doing, ask about the performance of specific indices such as the Nikkei, and more. Note that this functionality is available on the iPad as well, even though iOS on the iPad doesn't include Apple's Stocks app.
By Steve Overton
There is a commonly held belief that men don't like to ask for directions. As a guy, I am here to say it's true. At least for me. With Siri, I can ask for directions without anyone knowing.
