Ok, I’ll admit it; I occasionally use Siri in the car. It’s not a perfectly hands-free system, but it is great to be able to send a quick text to let someone know I’m running late without touching the phone too much.
The other day, though, I was sitting in the car at my son’s school, waiting for the final bell to go in and get him from class. I had my iPhone set up in the car, and was sending a text to a friend. I realized that somehow, in the transition to iOS 7, I no longer had access to the Emoji keyboard.
As the iPhone was propped in it’s in-car holder (a Breffo spiderpodium), I just activated Siri, out of habit.
Typically, I’d have tapped out of any folder I was in, then tapped to the Home screen, then tapped the Settings app, then tapped into the General preferences. I would have then scrolled down, and tapped on the Keyboard button. That’s a lot of steps.
With Siri listening attentively, I figured I’d just give it a shot: “Open Keyboard Settings.”
Boom! Siri took me right to the correct page. I was able to tap the Keyboards button, and then add Emoji to the enabled keyboards for my iPhone.
I then realized that, in my car or not, asking Siri to go directly to the specific settings page was a lot faster than tapping and scrolling. It turns out, Siri can take you to a ton of specific Settings app places with a simple command. Try saying, “Launch Accessibility settings,” for example, to go right there.
Next time you have a setting to change that’s buried a few levels deep, try asking Siri to launch it for you; you’ll go right there, saving precious seconds and making your day that much better.
