Type to Siri
With the introduction of Apple Intelligence in iOS 18.1, communicating with Siri has become more flexible since you can easily type your requests instead of speaking them. It’s a subtle but powerful change that’s perfect for those moments when you need to be quiet or [discreet].
Enabling Type to Siri is straightforward. Head to Settings -> Apple Intelligence & Siri, tap Talk & Type to Siri, and make sure the Type to Siri toggle is switched on.
To type to Siri, double-tap the bottom of the screen, then enter your request.
My one nit here is that tapping the microphone icon switches you back to plain old Siri.
No. When I tap that microphone, I want to dictate text that I can edit as I go. Perfect for complex queries, or for words/names that Siri gets wrong.
As is, feels like tapping the mic icon causes Siri to hijack my keyboard.
I had the same thought, expecting that I would be able to mix and match speech and typing. I also wish there were different ways of invoking Siri so that you could go right to typing or right to speech. Otherwise, if you enable typing, it always takes an additional tap to be able to speak. On the Mac, I can double-tap the Command key to activate Siri for typing, but then I have to take my fingers off the keyboard to click the little microphone icon. Hey Siri could work around this, but I have it turned off on all devices except my iPhone because otherwise it always seems to respond on the wrong one.
It’s sad that not even these super-basic parts of Apple Intelligence are available on slightly older phones (14Pro is my case). Boo!😒
My 4th generation iPad Air doesn’t support Apple Intelligence, but it does support Type to Siri, though I’m unable to invoke it by tapping.
Code suggests that “AdBlocker” will download audio fingerprints from Apple’s servers and then use the Shazam API to match them against audio captured by the device’s microphones using the Hey Siri API. When certain audios match, the new framework will temporarily disable Siri’s trigger commands.
Presumably, Apple will use audio fingerprints from its TV ads and keynotes to prevent any mentions of Siri from triggering the virtual assistant on users’ devices.
Previously:
