MacMost Now 630: Creating Alarms, Reminders and Timers with Siri

On the iPhone 4S you can use Siri for a variety of time-based functions. You can create simple alarms in your Clock app with Siri and even change alarms. You can also start, pause and stop timers. You can also create more complex reminders that then sync across your devices with iCloud. Reminders can be location-based as well as time-based.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost Now. On today's episode, let's take a closer look at Siri and how you can use it to create reminders on your iPhone. So at the most basic, you can set an alarm for a specific time. Set an alarm for 7 am tomorrow. "Ok, I set it for 7 am". Now, right here you can turn on or off the alarm. You can also tap on the entire alarm and it'll take you to the clock app and it'll show you that this is just really an alarm set in the clock app. Now you can also use Siri to turn off or delete an alarm. Turn off my 7 am alarm. Ok, your 7 am alarm is off. Delete my 7 am alarm. I canceled your 7 am alarm. Now you can also change the time of an alarm. Change my 7 am alarm to 7:30 am. Your alarm's now set to 7:30 am tomorrow. Of course, you can set an alarm for a specific day as well, or a range of days like, every day or weekdays. Set a 6 am alarm for every weekday. It's set for 6 am starting this Monday. So reminders are more complex alarms. You can set them for a variety of things and you can also sync them, of course, with iCloud as a reminder sync cross to your Mac and to your other iOS devices. Let's try one. Remind me to take out the trash at 7 o'clock. Here's your reminder for today at 7 pm. It says, take out the trash. Shall I create it? Cancel. Ok, I won't remind you. See, it gave me the choice to confirm or cancel; I could have pressed the buttons on the screen or I could have just simply said the words confirm or cancel. I could also use relevant time for reminders. Remind me to take a break 30 minutes from now. Here's your reminder, it says, take a break. Shall I create it? Confirm. Ok, I'll remind you. Now, with any reminder, I can simply tap on a reminder there in Siri and go to my Reminders app to see the list and modify it from there. Now of course reminders can be location based as well. So you can do this. Remind me to look at those papers when I get to work tomorrow. Here's your reminder for when you get to work, or by tomorrow. Just press the button there to confirm and now I get reminded when I approach work. Now, it knows where I work because if I go to my Contacts, there's a contact that's set to be my contact and in there, I've set work to be a specific address. So make sure in your contacts that you set work, home, school and those addresses all properly. You can also use your current location for reminders, so for instance, you can say, "Remind me to check my notes when I leave here." "Here's your reminder for when you leave here. It says, check my notes." So that would have done was* leave my current location. If I'm far enough away, it would show me that reminder. So you can also use Siri with the timer in your clock app. "Set a timer for two minutes." "Ok, 2 minutes and counting." So you can see it's counting down; I can do something like this. "Pause timer." "Ok, it's paused." "Resume timer." "Resuming the timer." Now, if I left Siri and I want to go back and see the timer again, I can go ask to show the timer. "Show timer." "Here's the timer." And you can see it's brought it back up again. I can stop the timer as well and cancel the timer. "Cancel timer." "Ok, I've canceled the timer." "Set a timer for one minute." "Ok, your timer is set for one minute." And of course, I can click on this interface here and jump right to the clock app to see the timer at its normal form. So, keep in mind that a lot of the functionality behind Siri is Apple's services, not on your iPhone. So they can update us at any time with Siri recognizing new things that you say and new ways to create reminders. Hope you found this look at creating reminders with Siri useful, til next time, this is Gary with MacMost Now.

Comments: One Response to “MacMost Now 630: Creating Alarms, Reminders and Timers with Siri”

Rick

13 years ago

Gary,
I'm getting the impression that you're enjoying Siri and finding it fun.
Me too.
With iCloud and Siri it makes a lot of things simple and easy.
My kids saw your initial video and they try and get her to tell a knock-knock joke.
As always, really enjoy your tutorials and information.
Best regards,
RickH.

Comments Closed.

MacMost Now 630: Creating Alarms, Reminders and Timers with Siri

Comments: One Response to “MacMost Now 630: Creating Alarms, Reminders and Timers with Siri”

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