iphone 12 – Here’s What You Can and Can’t Do With Offline Siri in iOS 15

Using Siri without an internet connection is much faster and way more convenient, but you can’t do everything with it.

iOS 15 was announced at Apple’s WWDC21 event, and Siri received some great features with the new software upgrade. Along with experience-enhanced speech processing and better notification announcements, Siri’s ability to partially run offline was a big reveal.

In case your internet service goes down for a while, let’s take a look at all the things Siri will be able to do for you offline, along with everything it still needs the internet for.

What Devices Support Offline Siri?

Offline Siri is a remarkable step and requires a powerful device to work. Due to this, only devices with an A12 bionic chip or newer support offline Siri.

These devices include iPhone XR, iPhone XS series, iPhone 11 series, iPhone 12 series, iPad mini (5th generation), iPad Air (3rd and 4th generation), iPad (8th generation), and any iPad Pro.

How Can You Make Sure Offline Siri Is Enabled?

Once yo update to iOS 15 or iPadOS 15, there’s no specific feature that you need to disable or enable to use Siri offline on your Apple device. However, certain toggles need to be turned on to make sure Siri works on your iPhone in general. Follow these steps to ensure that all the toggles are switched on:

1. Go to Settings and select Siri & Search.
2. Turn the toggle on to Listen for “Hey Siri” and dictate the phrases shown to you on the screen to make sure that Siri recognizes your voice.

Another important thing to note is that offline Siri only works for English (United States) in iOS 15, so if you want to use it and use Siri in another language, you’ll have to make a switch. Here are the steps you can take to change your default language:

1. Open Settings and tap on Siri & Search.
2. Select Language.
3. Scroll down and select English (United States) from the list.

What Works With Offline Siri in iOS 15?

Here are some of the things that work with offline Siri in iOS 15:

1. Toggling on and off multiple iPhone settings, like the flashlight, Light and Dark mode, Low Power mode, Airplane mode, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and other accessibility features
2. Setting and changing timers and alarms
3. Playing and pausing music
4. Reading messages and notifications that arrived before losing connection
5. Opening applications
6. Making phone calls

What Doesn’t Work With Offline Siri in iOS 15?

Anything that needs an active internet connection will not work with offline Siri. This includes general updates and message notifications.

Read More: How to Use Siri to Reply to Your Text Messages

Here are the tasks that will not work with offline Siri:

1. Requesting to be updated with apps that require an internet connection to function, such as the Weather app, Reminders, Calendar, and so on
2. Increasing or decreasing brightness
3. Playing music and podcasts, even when they’re downloaded
4. Announcing or reading messages and notifications after losing a connection

What Are the Benefits of Offline Siri?

The most significant change we will see with offline Siri is its ability to function much faster. Since an internet connection is not required, your commands do not need to leave your device to be processed. This will result in a shorter response time and make Siri a lot more convenient to use.

Another advantage is the layer of additional privacy that offline Siri offers. Commands like turning the volume up or turning on the flashlight do not require an internet connection anyway, and you can now be assured that your speech data will never leave your iPhone since your device is not connected to the internet.

Apple has always advocated for and worked towards greater efficiency in its software, and all the new updates with Siri in iOS 15 are a great example of that.

A New Venture for Apple’s Virtual Assistant

Apple is making sure to consistently churn out updates for Siri and make it a competitive virtual assistant alongside Alexa and Google Assistant.

Offline Siri allows you to run basic commands like changing the theme of your phone, settings timers, making calls—basically, anything that doesn’t require an internet connection—much faster than before. There’s still a lot of room for improvement, but we will undoubtedly see more commands and languages added to this feature in the upcoming updates.

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