How To Get Siri to Play a Song on Your iPhone or iPad

The Siri voice control function on iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad devices is a great way to make a wide variety of different tasks easier than ever before. For example, say you’d like to hear a song from a particular artist or album, or even just a random song from your favorite musician. Instead of manually opening the “Music” application and getting everything set up to your satisfaction, you can just have Siri do all the heavy lifting for you. All you need to do is speak a very particular command into the microphone on your device. Siri will expertly take care of the rest.

Step 1
Enable Siri functionality on your iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad if you have not already done so. The toggle switch for the Siri voice control functionality can be found in the “General” folder of the “Settings” application. Tap the “Siri” menu icon and switch voice control functionality to “On” before continuing.

Step 2
Start a new Siri voice control session by holding your iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad “Home” button until the appropriate box appears on the screen. Wait until a small purple microphone icon, accompanied by a “dinging” noise, appears on the screen before continuing.

Step 3
To play a podcast on your device, say the word “Play” followed by the name of the podcast. Siri will search for the appropriate podcast and play the most recently downloaded episode. To skip to the next downloaded episode, tap the microphone button another time and say “Next.”

Step 4
To play a movie from your device, say the word “Play” followed by the name of the movie in question. If you wanted to play a digital copy of Marvel’s “The Avengers,” for example, you would say “Play The Avengers.” Siri will immediately begin to play your movie. Note that this technique also works for television show episodes.

Step 5
To play a particular song from your device, say the word “Play” followed by the name of the song. To play a random song from a particular artist, say the word “Play” followed by the name of the artist. Siri will compile a playlist of all songs on your device from that particular artist and start playing the associated music. To play a specific album, say the word “Play” followed by the name of the album. Siri will play the album in its track order from the first song to the last.

Sam Jones, the author, has a three mobile deal on the new iPhone and has been having a lot of fun playing with Siri voice commands.