Learn how you can have Siri announce and read notifications through your iPhone’s speaker, connected headphones, or even an MFi hearing aid.
Siri has the ability to announce notifications through your iPhone’s speaker, Bluetooth earphones such as AirPods, or even an MFi hearing aid. This feature is great for people with visual impairments, as well as anybody else, to stay connected without having to physically interact with the iPhone.
Maybe you’re driving a car, running on a treadmill, or playing with your kids. Perhaps you’re lying in bed with your iPhone resting on your bedside table. Or maybe your iPhone simply isn’t within reach. Whatever the reason, you’ll be able to hear who’s calling or messaging you without checking the screen.
Have Siri announce incoming calls and app notifications
1) Open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
2) Tap Apple Intelligence & Siri or Siri & Search.
3) Select Announce Notifications.
Turn on the switch for Announce Notifications and then choose to have the notifications announced when wearing Headphones, using CarPlay, or both. We have mentioned about announcing notifications on speaker later below.
You can also review the list of apps and services from this screen and choose to turn off the announce notifications feature for some unimportant apps.
Furthermore, you can turn on the “Reply Without Confirmation” switch, which will let you reply to certain notifications, like texts, without reading back the reply.
4) Once you’ve taken care of the notifications, swipe back to the previous screen, tap Announce Calls, and select one of the following options:
- Always: Always announce incoming calls.
- Headphones & Car: Announce incoming calls via earbuds and the car’s speaker when it’s connected via Bluetooth.
- Headphones Only: Only announce calls when headphones are connected.
- Never: Turn off the Announce Calls feature.
Note that aside from Apple’s own Phone and Messages apps, the Announce Calls and Announce Notifications features also work with supported third-party applications.
Announce Notifications on iPhone Speaker
We have mentioned having your iPhone announce notifications when you’re using Headphones or CarPlay. You can also get the notifications announced via the device speaker.
1) Open the Settings app and tap Accessibility.
2) Scroll to the bottom and tap Siri.
3) Scroll down and enable Announce Notifications on Speaker.
After this, when you get a new notification, you will hear it being announced via your iPhone speaker. To customize which apps’ notifications you want to be announced, tap Announce Notifications and customize it accordingly on the next screen.
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