Big News

Siri will offer iPhone and iPad users several new features and enhancements when we all get our hands on iOS 8 later this year. Among them are voice activation, 22 new dictation languages, and song recognition via Shazam. But even now Siri may be capable of doing more than many of you realize.

Apple unveiled Siri in 2011 with the release of iOS 5 and the iPhone 4S. Responding to your questions, comments, and sometimes insults, the voice assistant tries to serve up answers to your queries as well as perform a variety of tasks to save you from manual labor. Apple has continually upgraded Siri with new skills and more smarts, but Siri still can be frustrating to use, especially when you aren't aware of its full capabilities.

Ensuring that people find Siri helpful is even more critical for Apple now that the concept of a virtual assistant has taken off in the mobile market. The voice-activated Google Now has grabbed a foothold on Android devices, while Microsoft's latest version of Windows Phone spotlights a personal voice assistant called Cortana.

So, just what can you now do with Siri without having to wait for iOS 8? Here are 12 tips and tricks that alliOS 7 users can try.

1. Hold to talk.
How often does Siri interrupt you before you have a chance to finish your entire question? The problem here is that after you tap the Home button to activate Siri, the voice assistant interprets a slight pause as a sign that you've stopped talking. Well, you can easily prevent those annoying interruptions simply by holding down the Home button until you finish speaking. Doing so ensures that Siri will hear your entire question and won't chime in until you release the button.

2. Access your previous exchange.
Siri keeps track of your conversations while it's open, so you can easily scroll back to a previous question and answer. But close Siri, and its memory is not as good. Still, you can at least harken back to your previous conversation when you open Siri anew. Here's how: Ask Siri a question, such as "What is the temperature?" Close Siri by tapping the Home button. Open Siri again but instead of asking a new question, tap the lower section of the Siri screen next to the question mark icon. Swipe up the Siri screen and you'll see your most recent exchange with the voice assistant.

4. Open an app.3. Edit your previous question.
You've asked Siri a question, but you made a mistake, resulting in the wrong answer. You can either repeat and rephrase the question or simply edit your previous question to correct the error. To do the latter, swipe your way up Siri's screen until you see your question. Notice the phrase "tap to edit" underneath it. Simply tap your question. You can now edit it to fix the mistake, either by typing or by tapping the microphone icon on the keyboard to speak. When finished, tap the Done button on your keyboard, and your corrected question is sent to Siri for a fresh, new answer.

You can't yet use Siri to actually control a third-party app, but you can at least tell it to launch an app. Pick any app installed on your iPhone and iPad, such as Angry Birds. Tell Siri to "open Angry Birds," and it will comply. If two or more apps share a similar name, for example, Angry Birds and Angry Birds Space, Siri will ask which one you want to launch.

5. Post on Facebook or tweet on Twitter.
Yes, you can tell Siri to post an update on Facebook or Twitter. Simply say: "Post on Facebook" or "Post on Twitter." Siri responds by asking what you want to say. Dictate your update, and Siri will then post it for you.

6. Send an email or text.
You can tell Siri that you want to text or email someone and then dictate the message all in one fell swoop. To email a specific person, say: "Email Steve." Siri asks you for the subject of the email and then asks you to dictate the message. After dictation, Siri asks if you want to send the email. In the case of a text, tell Siri: "Text Steve." Dictate your message, and Siri will record it and send it.

7. Read your emails and texts.
Yes, Siri can read aloud to you your emails and texts. To hear all of the emails in your inbox one after the other, tell Siri: "Read all my email." To hear the most recent email by date and time, simply tell Siri: "Read my latest email." With texts, you can ask Siri to read you all messages or just the latest one from a specific person. Siri complies and then asks if you want to reply to the person via text.

8. Check missed calls and voicemails.
You can tell Siri to read the names and numbers of all of your missed phone calls and voicemails. That's handy in itself. But you can take all that a step further by telling the voice assistant to play back your voicemails. Simply say: "Play my voicemail," and Siri puts your iPhone on speaker and automatically reads your latest voicemail.

9. Tell Siri who someone is.
Want to be able to tell Siri to text your wife or husband or send an email to your mom? You can tell Siri just who those people are in your life. To tell Siri that your wife's name is Cecelia, for example, say: "Cecelia is my wife." Siri will ask if you want it to remember that fact. Just say yes, and it will keep track of the relationship. The next time you say: "Text my wife, please," Siri will know exactly who you mean.

10. Teach Siri how to pronounce names.
Frustrated because Siri mispronounces your name or the name of one of your contacts? You can teach it how to pronounce the name correctly. Let's say Siri keeps getting your cousin's name wrong when you try to email or text him. To correct the problem, tell Siri: "That's not how you pronounce [your cousin's full name]." In response, Siri asks how you pronounce the first name. Speak the name correctly, and Siri then displays a list of three suggested pronunciations that you can listen to. Pick the right (or closest) one, and Siri corrects its pronunciation. Siri then repeats that process with the last name. From then on, Siri will know how to pronounce the full name.

11. Turn a setting on or off.
iOS offers an array of settings behind the scenes that you can enable or disable. But finding a specific setting can be a challenge. Instead, let Siri do the work for you. Let's say you want to turn on Bluetooth. Just tell Siri: "Turn on Bluetooth," and your wish is its command. Time to turn if off? Just say: "Turn off Bluetooth," and Siri again grants your wish.

12. Learn what you can ask Siri.
One of the biggest questions might just be: "What exactly can you ask Siri?" To see a list of sample conversation items, launch Siri and either ask: "What can I ask Siri?" or tap the question mark icon in the lower left corner. Siri displays a list of topics that it can answer along with a specific example for each.

Siri can perform many other tricks, but these are some of the major ones. Stay tuned for more tips once iOS 8 hits your iPhone or iPad later this year.

If you own an iPhone and a Mac, Apple's new system for connecting the two is one of the best new features for OS X 10.10 Yosemite. True, Apple is years behind Google when it comes to making and taking phone calls from the computer, but its better-late-than-never approach gives the company two big advantages over Google's system: the fact that it easily syncs with your phone, and that it's part of a tightly-integrated system that goes beyond making calls.

So long as your iPhone and Mac with OS X Yosemite share a Wi-Fi network, you'll be able to take calls on your computer that come to your phone -- you can mute audio, and also switch to video mode.

The feature lets you dial out as well, say, by clicking a number that's stored in your address book, calendar, messaging app, or Safari browser -- a restaurant or store's phone number, for instance. As an added bonus, Apple has given the calling feature enough smarts to automatically enter a passcode when you're dialing into a conference line.

Google has two different methods for making calls from your computer. First, there's Hangouts, which overrode the erstwhile Google Talk application with a peer-to-peer messaging app that also supports voice and video chats with other Hangouts users over VoIP.

The second option through Google's system is to link your Gmail account to Google Voice, which I personally use. With Google Voice, it doesn't matter which phone you use or if you're on a Wi-Fi network at all. However, Google Voice account ownership has its own ups and downs, and the service is limited to the US, its largest limitation by far.You can make Hangouts calls to outside lines, but you'll have to buy credit, just as you would with Skype, and your caller won't be able to identify your call or return it through a fixed number that belongs only to you. In fact, Hangout calls are marked as originating from an unknown caller.

How often you use Mac calling between OS X Yosemite and your iPhone really depends on how you use your rig, and how many calls you generate and receive.

Apple's official example is that you can answer calls on your laptop or desktop while your phone is charging in the other room. That's a perfectly good use case, and as a Google Voice user whose incoming call notifications pop up on my desktop at work, here's another one: sometimes alerts that appear in front of your eyes are easier to notice and respond to than one on a tiny screen at your elbow.

If I'm already looking right at the screen when a call comes in, I occasionally take calls through the computer -- it keeps my concentration and gaze focused and keeps my hands on the mouse, not fiddling with the phone's controls.That's when I'm at home. At the office, I generally see (and hear) the on-screen call notification before I see my (silent) ringtone alert. As a cubical-dweller in an open floor plan, I don't take many personal calls at my desk. That Google Voice popup helps me make the decision to either walk away with my phone somewhere more private, or table the call for later. A pair of headphones with a built-in mic could also do the trick for semi-private conversations.

In addition to taking calls, Yosemite supports click-to-call to dial out. As with the iPhone, clicking the screen to enter a personal or business number will certainly save you a step from reaching for the phone and typing in numbers you see on the screen.

One drawback with the current version of Yosemite (beta, released to developers) is that it doesn't include a dialer for punching in one-off numbers you don't find online or in your contacts list -- say you'd like to enter a number from a business card, or punch in a number you know by heart without first trawling through the address book.

Apple's on-screen calling is a convenience, but it's only one part of a larger push to bridge your iPhone (and iPad) with the Mac. A concept that Apple calls Continuity and a technical protocol called Handoff also make it possible to share all sorts of content between devices, including documents and messaging conversations. It's also part of the schema that lets your Mac draw a hotspot data connection from an iPhone.

My colleague Jason Parker describes Handoff in detail here.

I'm guessing I'm in a minority of Mac users who also uses Google Voice with Gmail to field incoming calls, but once my MacBook Air updates to Yosemite, I'll instantly, and automatically join a much larger community of Mac-and-iPhone owners who can start using roughly the same features without even thinking about it.

This deep integration, without tinkering with settings or signing up for extra accounts, is what makes Mac calling most compelling, in the same way that Apple managed to make FaceTime seem like a revelation for a lot of casual users who weren't familiar with other mobile video chat services.

Since Mac calling is just one example of Apple's expanded relationship between the iPhone and the computer, Apple is essentially training its users of both products to start relying on this convergence of computing power.

For users, this means fluidly moving between devices for content and calls. For competitors, like Google, it means that Apple's in-house services could give its ecosystem the home-court advantage over third-party solutions, just by the very presence of a dialog box that appears in the corner of your screen when someone calls your phone.