Although it was the first popular digital assistant ever released on smartphones, Siri has always been second to Google Assistant in terms of functionality since the latter came into existence. For years, Android users have had the option to allow Google Assistant to read out the text messages they receive on their phone and in 2019, this functionality was expanded to more third-party apps like WhatsApp, Discord, Telegram, and more.
Although Siri has been able to read your caller ID out loud since iOS 10, the ability to announce text messages only rolled out to users with iOS 13 that was released in 2019. There was no way iPhone and iPad users were able to get Siri to announce notifications from apps on their devices. This changes with iOS 15 as Apple has now given Siri the ability to deliver time-sensitive incoming notifications through a new ‘Announce Notifications’ option.
In this post, we’ll explain how this new ‘Announce Notifications’ option works on iOS, what you may need to use this feature, and how to enable it on your iPhone.
How do Notification Announcements work on iOS?
With iOS 15, Siri is gaining a slew of new features like on-device speech processing, screen sharing using your voice, offline accessibility, time-sensitive commands for your HomeKit devices, better context between requests, and more. But perhaps the most significant of these features is Siri’s ability to announce notifications from the apps installed on your iPhone.
With this feature, you would no longer need to unlock your iPhone or say “Hey Siri” to know whether you have any unread, messages or notifications from apps.
Once your notifications have been read out loud, Siri will wait and listen for your input so that you can respond to a message or notification hands-free without needing to say “Hey Siri” again.
What kind of notifications can Siri announce?
By default, the new ‘Announce Notifications’ option in iOS 15 will announce all of your time-sensitive notifications as well as direct messages. However, users can configure the feature in such a way that Siri announces non-time-sensitive notifications as well.
Announcements from Siri will support both Apple apps and apps from third-party developers, with users getting full control over which apps they receive announcements from. Users can couple this with their notification control options to decide whether or not they want to get announcements from a certain individual or group.
What do you need to enable Siri Announcements?
For the new ‘Announce Notifications’ option to work, you need to meet a certain set of requirements. First and foremost, you should have an iPhone that runs on iOS 15, which at the moment is only available as developer/public betas for select iPhones. Even if you’re curious to check out the latest version of Apple’s mobile OS, we’d advise against installing the beta builds on your primary device as that might hamper your daily work as you may encounter bugs and issues.
Once you’ve made sure you are running the latest iOS 15 Developer or Public beta, you should be able to use Notification announcements by enabling the feature straight away.
Note: Prior to the release of iOS 15 Beta 7, users required to have any of the following devices to get Notification announcements working on their iPhones: 2nd generation AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, some compatible Beats headphones, and CarPlay supported devices. Since Apple has removed the above devices from its limitations, you should be able to access the Siri Announcements no matter which pair of headphones you connect to your iPhone.
How to Enable Siri Announcements on your iPhone
Now that you know what’s required to make Siri announcements work, you can follow the steps below to enable ‘Announce Notifications’ for Siri on your iPhone. First, open the Settings app on iOS and tap on the ‘Siri & Search’ option.
Inside the ‘Siri & Search’ screen, select the ‘Announce Notifications’ option.
On the next screen, toggle ON the ‘Announce Notifications’ switch at the top.
Now, toggle the ‘Headphones’ switch under ‘Announce When Connected to’ to ON position to make sure Siri reads out whenever you receive an important text or notification on your iPhone.
Additionally, you can toggle ON the ‘CarPlay’ option under the same section if you want Siri to announce your incoming notifications when you’re driving. This will save you some time that it previously took you to manually tap on the screen every time you received a text when driving.
Since the new ‘Announce Notifications’ feature comes with the ability to respond to them hands-free, Apple has by default disabled a ‘Reply without Confirmation’ toggle so that Siri repeats whatever you just asked it to respond to. You can, however, enable this ‘Reply without Confirmation’ toggle to avoid an announcement from Siri every time you ask it to craft a message.
How to Choose which Apps you get Siri Announcements from
Once you have enabled the ‘Announce Notifications’ option inside Settings, you can configure which apps you want to get Siri announcements from individually. To do that, open the Settings app on your iPhone and go to Siri & Search > Announce Notifications.
Inside the Announce Notifications screen, scroll down and select the app you want to configure announcements from under the ‘Announce Notifications From’ section.
On the next screen, toggle on the ‘Announce Notifications’ option inside each of the apps so that you only get the notifications you’re interested in hearing.
That’s all there is to know about making Siri announce notifications on your iPhone.
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